It is every time a deeply emotional journey to come to Vatsalya for a visit. Today Shashi Malpe, my neighbour and Secretary of the institution took me with her on her almost daily attendances; here she is sitting on her desk interacting with the administrative staff. (The entire picture-set of today’s visit is here on Flickr.)
The committed donation have all been received in the bank. I would be happy if I could announce more progress in terms of ordering the OLPC-laptops, but India being India, there are some communication issues with the allegedly responsible for OLPC in the country. I would like to keep this statement as diplomatic as I can and rather work behind the scenes to get the ball finally rolling. Overall, there is not the slightest doubt that we will place 11 computers on the also-yet-to-be-installed desks of the orphanage here:
This room until a few days back had been the dormitory of the orphanage which has been shifted on the other side of the building. Here, a terrace has been repurposed into becoming the new dormitory.
It is here every morning at 5.30 am that the 50 girls from the age of 5 to 19 years start their day with meditation and prayer before they take responsibility for the cleanliness of their space. After breakfast, school starts at 8.30 am and ends at 3.30 pm – with a lunch break in between. The children take a small rest with tea, before then have another lesson of special schooling with additional teachers from outside. Then homework, dinner and at 10.30 pm the lights go off.
What might sound quite demanding, is certainly a disciplined approach to education. What I always appreciated at Vatsalya, and why I selected this institution for the OLPC-project, that the girls still get their space to be children with dancing, music and painting to play and foster creativity at the same time.
We were happy to announce the OLPC-project to the girls where I felt particularly honoured mentioning my friends from around the world who are supporting this initiative. The girls are really, really looking forward to the arrival of the laptops. I will push as fast as I can to make it happen. Last but not least, a little 1 min-video I put together with the girls to give you a real-life experience. When I see the girls so curious and engaged, then I know that this project is the best thing we could start off.
Feeds
Great post and related Slideshare. Could we republish both as a Guest Post on OLPC News? Or might you write a new post just for us?
Thanks, glad to know that you like it :-) Sure, go ahead and re-publish as much as you want. Just make sure that if you re-publish the blog post to link back to the original source-URL in order to avoid the “duplicate content”-problem with Google.
Ah, I actually just had an extensive phone conversation with Satish Jha who is heading OLPC India and he promised to get back to me in 10 to 12 days if we can bundle the 11 laptops with other order to a bigger batch of minimum 100 computers in order to keep the cost economically feasible for either party.