A rural school that changed 35,000 lives now wants to leapfrog to the Internet era

Happy picture of school and kids here Bharatiya Gramin Vidyalaya,

Village Kunaura, Post Mahona, Lucknow Distt., UP

In the 1940s, a young boy from a remote Uttar Pradesh village used to walk 12 km to and back from school every day because there was no other school in the region.

That boy became Dr. S.B. Misra, co-founder of Bharatiya Gramin Vidyalaya, also a geologist who discovered 565 million years-old fossils to plug a hole in Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, also now an award-winning editor of Gaon Connection, India’s first comprehensive rural newspaper.

• The school’s co-founder was Nirmala Misra, Dr. Misra’s city-bred wife, who gave up her comfortable urban existence and became the first principal, working without salary for decades.

• For the first time, girls in the entire region started coming to school, because the principal, reassuringly, was a woman.

• For the first time, Muslims, Dalits and children from underprivileged castes got to go to school.

• Over 42 years, Mrs. Misra has become a role model for thousands of women.

• Over the past four decades, the school has created path breaking social impact.

• A dacoits’ village was rid of crime and criminals because its children started coming to Bhartiya Gramin Vidyalaya. The chief dacoit’s son became a state government awardee sculptor.

• Girls started getting education, jobs, with which they pursued better lives and stood up to social discrimination and domestic violence and prejudice.

• Boys and girls started dreaming big, aspiring for city careers they could never have imagined.

• Now, rural children are hungry to learn computers and gain the same knowledge from the Internet that children the world over have.

Here is how you can help…

The school needs help to achieve its vision

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Fund Internet-aided classrooms with projectors and screens, and the refurbishment of the school’s Knowledge Centre

Help build toilets for students – as well as a water harvesting system to keep them clean, and maintenance funds to support the salary of cleaning staff

Fund science, English and computer science teachers, and adequate compensation for them to be able to come from city to the rural school.

Fund large-scale vocational training, fellowships and endowments for girl students to enable them to receive college education and jobs

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Help fund a science laboratory – which would be perhaps the first science laboratory in a rural school in the state.

Help fund solar panels to run evening and night classes, fans and coolers for students and street lamps on campus – as well as maintenance funds.

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Help fund a student hostel for to enable highly qualified rural students to receive high quality education without having to struggle in cities.

Help mentor rural journalists and community leaders

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