First Fortnight in Bangalore

He has 2 alphabets and 2 languages to learn before his sixth birthday

The children in Building Blocks Learning Centres look like average, bright and happy kids. The fact that there's no electricity or running water at home doesn't show in their behaviour,  and in their smart uniforms, they're pretty much indistinguishable from the kids who come from very different, financially privileged backgrounds. If he's smart, bright and hard-working when he's six, he'll be offered a place at an English-Medium School, and if we do our job at Escape from Poverty, he'll have a scholarship that will subsidise his fees and fund after-school coaching and mentoring right through to age 16.

Last week, someone suggested to me that it was a colonial legacy to "force the children to learn English rather than their own language," but this is a total misunderstanding of modern-day India.

In India today, there are more than 800 different languages. 122 are spoken by more than 10,000 people, and 30 of these are each spoken by more than a million. 

India recognises 31 official languages in which official business is conducted in India's 36 states and Union Territories.

Only Hindi and English are recognised as official national languages. English was to have been phased out in the 1960s, but this led to civil unrest and riots in the south of the country, where Hindi was not spoken. The government was persuaded to allow the continuing use of English as the alternative official national language, helping India to claim its place as a major economic power.

Numbers and Numerals in Kannada

For most of the children in Building Blocks, the regional language of Kannada is their mother tongue, but within a year at school they'll be proudly incorporating English words and singing English nursery rhymes. If you follow Building Blocks schools on Facebook, you might hear them wishing you a Merry Christmas and demanding "now bring us some Figgy Pudding," in a couple of weeks or so.

You might even catch the live broadcast on December 1st which we have named "Gratitude 2017" when I shall be interviewing some of the children and staff LIVE in our attempt at a global broadcast to thank our sponsors around the world. Don't worry - you needn't get up in the middle of the night to watch; we'll be posting an edited version a couple of days later.

The advanced technology of India never ceases to amaze me. 

Portable Wireless Hotspot

There are at least a billion mobile phones in India, and of these, over 300 million are smartphones, (the ones that do virtually everything.) 

I can use my UK phone in India free of charge through WhatsApp or Messenger because, in my pocket, I have a portable wifi hotspot smaller than my tiny Canon pocket camera. This amazing "Jio" cost about £12 and logs into ANY network in Bangalore, and I am assured it will work anywhere in India. In the New Year, I shall find out whether it works back home.

My point is that when you have a country with children who have the mental ability to juggle with languages in their infancy, and when you build a digital network that offers 12 weeks of unlimited text and calls, and 2Gb of data per day for a one-off charge of £6, you are creating a highly sophisticated, capable and interconnected workforce for the future. It's all about mental agility and technical dexterity.

Our challenge in Building Blocks and Escape from Poverty is not about qualifications and Exams, it's about self-confidence, people skills, leadership, and creativity. That's what James and I are talking about, as we put together the proposals to raise funding for a new school that will not focus primarily on rentable skills that can be sold by the hour. Artificial Intelligence will be doing that almost within our lifetime.

At our new school project, we envisage a community that will be totally child-centric and will value originality over conformity. Teenagers are perfectly capable of coming up with innovative solutions to what our generation see as insurmountable problems. They just need our encouragement. 

...And encouraging enthusiasm is much more fun than controlling ebullience.

If you'd like to contribute a few pounds to Escape from Poverty's General Scholarship Fund, you can make a sterling donation HERE using almost card which bears the Visa or Mastercard symbol.  We've put an initial target of £1,800, which is a 5-year scholarship, and already raised a third; I hope to set a higher target in a month or so.
If you make a donation, you'll be helping to change a child's life for ever.

Indian Children's Day 2017

Before they came to Building Blocks, 

these children would have been playing 

in the streets of the slum districts 

where they have their homes.

So much energy and enthusiasm!

In India, a national Children's Day is celebrated early in November every year. In Bangalore, there is great excitement with the children of Building Blocks pre-schools, who perform a concert for their classmates and invited guests including sponsors and other benefactors. As you can see from the video, they put all their effort and enthusiasm into their performance and it makes for a very entertaining day.

At Escape from Poverty, our focus is on the next ten years after pre-school, and a number of past students also participated in this year's entertainment.

These older children maintain their link with Building Blocks on such occasions, and more importantly through the After-School Programme

After they finish lessons at their new schools, they go back to their former learning centres, where they have help with coaching, mentoring and tuition to ensure that they do not fall behind the achievement level of pupils from more privileged backgrounds.

Click on the picture for more information on Escape from Poverty

From early childhood in absolute poverty in rudimentary living conditions, these children are now acquiring the skills, the knowledge and the self-confidence that will ensure that they will go on through their education, and  "Escape from Poverty."

Heading for Heathrow

My travel memories on my office wall.

I monitor prices for the photo-printing company www.my-picture.co.uk, and every so often, the price of 40cm x 30cm canvas prints drops from thirty-something pounds to around a tenner, and that's when I add another one or two travel memories to my bedroom wall. There are many memories already on display: an open gateway at a retreat centre in Wales, the tram lines going into the Berlin Wall 3 months after it went up; teenage girls on the beach in France, and a memorable lunch in the sun near Carcassonne earlier this year.

In the coming weeks, my camera will come into service again when I start on a new fund-raising project to support my charity, Escape from Poverty. I am copying the idea of  Khora, one of the refugee organisations I came across when I was in Greece last year. 

Volunteers at the Khora community centre in Athens

They produced an artistic photo-book which they sold to raise funds. 

Inspired by this, I am working on a commercial project to fund the design and production of a full colour "coffee-table book" illustrating the life of children in Bangalore, and the educational projects supported by my charity. This book will then be offered for sale to raise funds for scholarships.

My son-in-law has given me his Nikon digital SLR now that he has upgraded to something even more technically complicated, and although my pocket Canon and my mobile phone take good pictures, I look forward to getting my hands on a real camera again.
One week from now I shall be (in sh'Allah) at LHR T5, nervously wondering if I have packed everything. 

An invitation to the party

My trip includes the Indian Children's Day Festival on November 11th, then a fortnight in Bangalore, planning the 2018 marketing strategy, and setting up organisational procedures before I fly off for a side-trip to Mumbai to see the projects of Aarti Naik with girls' education in slum districts around the city.

The chapel/temple at Shantivanam

Back briefly to Bangalore, and then I'll take the night train for the 8-hour journey to the monastery/ashram where I shall spend Christmas and New Year.

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