Vikas Taneja is the Boston Chapter lead for Pratham, an NGO in India that took root eleven years ago in the slums of Mumbai.  Pratham  means "first" and also "primary".  The idea behind the name comes from Pratham's focus on primary education and helping children 'first and foremost'. Today its work has impacted a million children through preschool, at school and after school programs. Chapters of Pratham have been started at various cities in the US to promote and sustain Pratham's work.Vikas Taneja discussed the work of Pratham and the goals of the Boston Chapter.

How did you get involved in Pratham?

I first got involved with Pratham in 2004.  I am very interested in education and literacy issues and was looking to help an organization that could have a large scale impact on illiteracy in India.  After visiting Pratham’s facilities in the Dharavi slum area of Mumbai I came away convinced that Pratham was an organization that could have a meaningful impact on the lives of children.   I was impressed by the strength of Pratham’s model and the passion of its volunteers.

Pratham’s mission is: “Every child in school and learning well.”  Pratham realizes its mission through a variety of pre-school and supplemental education programs that help improve a child’s cognitive skills, literacy, numeracy, and overall well being.    The results also speak for themselves – over 300,000 children had been directly influenced by Pratham.  

Pratham has started a chapter in Boston? What goals has it set for this chapter?

The Greater Boston area has some unique advantages as a place to set up a Pratham chapter: access to some of the world’s best universities; a thoughtful, committed, and active South Asian community; and a large group of families, students, and professionals that are looking to engage and contribute on social causes.
We are looking to leverage some of these Boston area advantages to build a dynamic and growing chapter for Pratham in Boston.

Our goals for the Boston chapter are to:
•    Increase awareness of education issues in India among Boston area residents and professionals
•    Provide resources for Pratham programs in India (through funding as well as direct volunteer assistance). 
•    Build a community of volunteers and donors that care about and contribute to education-related causes

There are over 100M children in India that cannot yet read.  Pratham has already helped about 300,000 children read and learn arithmetic.  In addition to increasing awareness of education issues and building a volunteer group, I would like Pratham’s Boston chapter to meet a goal of assisting 10,000 children in India for 2007.

How does one get involved in Pratham ?
There are many ways to get involved with Pratham in Boston and many exciting programs planned in Boston in 2007.   To get involved just email me at: Taneja.Vikas@bcg.com  

Here are some potential programs for Pratham Boston in 2007:
•    Pratham Visits In India
•    Pratham internships for Boston area students
•    Education Discussions at Boston area conferences
•    TiE conferences
•    Community events (e.g. music concerts)

In addition, there are some concrete ways you can contribute to Pratham:
•    Adopt a Pratham project or community by making a direct donation
•    Designate Pratham as your charity of choice in lieu of gifts for birthdays, holidays, weddings, etc.
•    Allocate funds from your IRA to go to Pratham
•    Activate a corporate matching program or encourage your corporation to support Pratham directly
•    Volunteer in the US or India
•    Become a Pratham ambassador – tell your friends, encourage them to visit Pratham while in India, take them to Pratham USA events, start a Pratham chapter in your city
•    Name Pratham as a beneficiary in your will

You can learn more about Pratham at www.pratham.org or www.prathamusa.org  

Tell us about the first event that Pratham hosted here in Boston?

“Pratham is open to anyone who would like to help and anyone who would like to learn about our initiative.” – Ujwal Thakar, CEO of Pratham’s Education Initiative.  

Mr.Thakar participated in the “Pratham Education Roundtable” organized by Pratham’s Boston chapter and sponsored by the International Development and Education Association (IDEA) at Harvard Graduate School of Education.  

The event was held on October 12th at the Kennedy School of Government.  The standing-room only discussion featured a panel that included: Ujwal Thakar, CEO of Pratham’s Education Initiative; Anil Shah, President of Pratham USA; Mrs. Jayanti Ravi, a Mason Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government; Kathy Eckroad, from the Kennedy School of Government, and Vikas Taneja, Pratham Boston’s chapter lead.  Professor Fernando Reimers, Director of Harvard’s International Education Policy Program, facilitated the panel.

Mr. Thakar spoke passionately about Pratham and stressed that there were three main challenges to overcome for Pratham’s model to be successful: low cost, close engagement of the local community, and scalability without sacrificing effectiveness.

The panelists discussed how Pratham achieves these key challenges every day.  Cost effectiveness is achieved through:
•    No buildings, rent or utilities to pay – the schools are held in the teacher’s house, under a tree or in govt. schools
•    The cost is $600 per community of 300 children

The local community is engaged through:
•    Teachers are recruited from within the neighborhood – a key side benefit is the empowering of young women in the villages who become Pratham teachers
•    Working with village councils, educationists, parents
•    Teaching in local languages using local volunteers

And the model is immensely scaleable yet effective through:
•    Continuous training and monitoring
•    Set curriculum, minimum performance standards, time bound
•    Innovative learning techniques. Pratham’s model is simple, yet amazingly effective.  Children are reading in 3 weeks.

Prof. Reimers pointed out there are several questions that Pratham will need to continue to address as it matures including: how to work side-by-side with professional school teachers as the program develops further, how to ensure and maintain quality of education as the program scales, and how to measure and govern its own performance.  

Mr. Thakar ended the roundtable by indicating that Pratham has focused on India so far and that the program welcomes anyone who would like to volunteer for Pratham or who has an interest in replicating the Pratham model elsewhere in the world. 

Pratham has a model that is unique in terms of it education? Can you outline it further?

As outlined above, there are three main components in Pratham’s model: low cost, close engagement of the local community, and scalability without sacrificing effectiveness.

 Could you highlight some statistics on education or lack of it in India?

In 2005, Pratham worked with 750 NGOs to produce the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) in January 2006.  The campaign took under 100 days and covered 509 of the 591 rural districts of India.  Pratham volunteers visited 190,000 houses in 9,500 villages and tested 333,000 children.  The report showed that nearly 94% of the children in India go to school but only about 70% attend regularly with wide variation among regions.  More alarming is that only about half of the children who have attended school for 4 years can read simple sentences.  Even more alarming is that more than three quarters of the children who have attended school for 4 years cannot perform a simple division.

What are your views on Social Entrepreneurship that seems to be the new model for charities?

There are a few relevant issues here.  The first is how success is measured – in the case of a non-profit, it cannot always be about net income.  Pratham USA raises millions for the Pratham projects but the impact is worth many times more.

The second issue is the importance and value of applying business principles to fund raising – professionalizing the non-profit model.

Just as introducing opportunities for social awareness components in high end travel has become extremely popular, donors today are looking for ways not only to make a difference with their dollars but to make their dollars go farther than ever.

At its heart, Pratham is a dynamic and entrepreneurial organization looking to make a massive scale change

There is a new partnership that is beginning to take shape between the private sector and the non profits? How is this viewed when it comes to India and specially in Pratham’s case ?

The main interest of corporations doing business in India is to show that they are giving back to the country.  Probably the biggest question that has been raised by this relationship is the ability of the non-profit to run a highly cost-effective and transparent operation.  Pratham is regularly acknowledged as effectively addressing both these concerns and is seen a natural corporate partner. Pratham’s position as a non-profit in both India and the US provides US corporations with a variety of options to help support Pratham.

In the case of India, there is always concern about involvement with any project that has close government ties.  Pratham has been careful not to take any financial support from the government.  In fact, what has happened is that the government is now asking Pratham to train its teachers.

Can you share a human interest story where Pratham has made a difference?

Pratham staffer Shalini Sachdev writes: “As you know, in June 2005, Mumbai was lashed with rains enough to fill our water needs for a whole year, in a single day. Amidst the tragedy of the landslide on July 26, 2005 in Ghatkopar, there were also tales of great heroism - Premlata Rai, a Pratham teacher rescued 16 people from the rubble single handedly... Premlata says more could have been rescued had help arrived that very day.

Pratham’s teachers are everyday heroes helping children learn to read, study arithmetic, or, as in the case of Premlata, literally rescuing children from despair.  

You can learn more about Pratham at www.pratham.org or www.prathamusa.org 

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