Children's Day Celebrations - Newsletter from Bangalore

On the 17th of November 2019 Building Blocks India celebrated  “Children’s Day” for the children of all its branches. This celebration also coincided with the 15th anniversary of Building Blocks India. It has been an amazing and fulfilling journey to see hundreds of children getting an education, care and nutrition for so many years. All this would not be possible without your support, association and partnership with us. Here are the highlights of the celebrations and the other events for this month. Children's Day Performances Building Blocks India celebrated Children’s Day on the 17th of November. What a show!!! Our children were such stars!! The theme was "THIS PLANET IS OUR HOME" and all the songs, dances and play that the children performed were based on protecting our environment. It was a very meaningful event when we could bring about greater awareness of the preservation of our earth, for the next generation. With the help of the teachers and centre managers, the children from K3, K4, K5 and Project +10 put up a spectacular performance.  A big round of applause for the teachers and the team who choreographed the dances, and so patiently taught the children. The show would not have been a success if not for the hard work and perseverance of the teachers and centre managers. Visitors The Children's day wouldn't have been such a grand success without all our dear friends who visited, cheered and encouraged the children's performances and their achievements.  We would like to thank you for taking the time to come and make this event very special for everyone - and especially for the children. It was wonderful to hear you all share stories of your association and experiences with Building Blocks. You deserve all the appreciation and thanks for your help and support, which is what keeps our cause to educate the children alive and progressing. Japanese Team's Visit To Building Blocks A visit by a team from Japan  Led by Ms Megumi Shimonaka and Mr Kota. We are very thankful for the team who travelled over six thousand kilometres to visit Building Blocks again this year. We appreciate your interest in getting to know the children, sponsoring their education and giving them a better future. It was such a special time.  The team spent time with each of the children that they sponsor, gave of them a very good leather bag for their school-work, played games, visited their homes in the slums, met with their parents and saw first-hand where the children come from, what their living conditions are and the need to support their education to break the cycle of poverty.   We want to thank Ms Megumi Shimonaka, Mr Kota and the team for many years of their association with Building Blocks India and their continued sponsorship of the education of these needy children. redBus Employee Engagement

A special day for all the children at Freesia!    A visit of all heads of departments of redBus company. It was a wonderful time spent by the children with them, interacting, performing, showing all that they are learning. The team got a tour of the school. Project +10 children also got to meet the team. They surprised the redBus team by doing a skit highlighting the redBus company and their transport services.  Thanks to the redBus team for taking the time to come and interact with the children. They also  painted the entrance wall of Freesia school to and make it special for the children. After 15 months in India I have seen, first-hand the wonderful transformation of young lives as our children take the first steps towards gaining the education their parents and forebears never had. It's Christmas ! All donations especially valued CLICK HERE to DONATE

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Here is the latest newsletter, prepared by our team in Bangalore

These little lights are gonna light up the world!   Greetings everyone!  Here at Building Blocks, we are thrilled to be able to give these children a better chance at life. We take pride in the fact that we open our doors every morning to the next generation of engineers, doctors, police officers, IT professionals, nurses and maybe even the leaders of the future. We are excited to see how far-reaching our efforts and these children will go, and we hope you are too. Here is an overview of all the activities of this month. Parent-Teacher Meeting We have made it a priority to regularly meet with the parents and keep them informed and aware of how their child is doing overall at school, and share areas they have made progress in.  We encourage the parents to be involved in the different aspects of their child's learning and support them in every way possible. Parents also follow a timetable to take turns coming to spend a day at school, where they assist the team with support staff duties - and this way they also get to see what their child is engaged in during their time spent at school.  After the recent assessment tests, all the parents were invited to receive their child's report cards during a scheduled PTM. During this event, they met with their child’s class teacher to hear positive feedback of how their child is doing, the areas he/she has progressed in, and they are informed of learning areas that he/she has yet to improve in over the remainder of the Academic Year. Parents were kindly requested to encourage their child for efforts made so far!  The parents are very thankful for the education, care and nutrition that their children are receiving at Building Blocks and were happy to receive feedback on their child at PTM.  School Assembly at 10 Centers School Assemblies have been recently introduced in all our 10 Centres, as part of the curricular for the day. This is the first activity that the children engage in upon their arrival at school.  All children and staff gather in the school compound where school assembly is conducted. During school assembly, the children recite the  Asathoma song, perform simple group exercises, review the 4 Daily Reminders, are welcomed by the School Manager, and followed by a special presentation by the K5 students twice in a week, after which they close with the school singing our National Anthem. School Assembly helps teachers and children to start each school day with the right tone - by beginning the day with this unified daily practice. This new routine has strengthened the way each school functions. The assemblies are well planned out and conducted with the combined active participation of the students, teachers and manager. They are also used to enhance and highlight various aspects of school activities and celebrations at school.  Gandhi Jayanti Celebrations All 10 Building Blocks centres celebrated the birthday of Mahatma Gandhiji (Father of the Nation) on the 2nd of October. It was a time of fun and learning for all the children. Through themed assembly performances by children & teachers we highlighted our FOUR ’Daily Reminders’ and the connection between Gandhiji’s lifestyle: ‘Be Kind… Be Sharing.. Be Giving… and Forgiving. Many of the K5 boys dressed up in Gandhiji’s attire for the occasion. Parents did an amazing job helping them with this. Also, K5 children learnt songs, quotes and a simple themed skit beforehand, and performed this on the day of the event - which was one of the highlights! Throughout celebrations; the stories, drama, songs, activities, special lunch and more.. the children got to know and understand in age-appropriate levels about the life story, ideals, and accomplishments of Mahatma Gandhi.  “Be the change that you want to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi Air Asia Employee Engagement Air Asia Airlines office staff visited Freesia and Azalea centres this month to spend a day interacting with the children. Employees engaged with Preschool children at Freesia, and ASP children at Azalea.   Both visits were organised and conducted by the C.O.O. and Academic Coordinators. They were briefed about Building Blocks India, and respective learning programmes for both groups of children. After a school tour and assisting with learning activities, everyone was brought together for group games and activities with the children, staff and AA Employees, which all enjoyed immensely! The day closed with their team distributing sugar-free snack boxes for all children.  The visits culminated in later bringing K5 children from Freesia, to celebrate Diwali with their entire team, at their newly launched office at Yelahanka. The children had a blast performing for everyone and enjoyed a yummy veg lunch with the AA team. On this occasion, 210 gifts were distributed to Azalea and Freesia children. *Wish cards were filled out by the children themselves, and sent across to the Air Asia team prior to the Diwali celebrations.  Our thanks go out to Air Asia for their contribution in adding happiness and smiles to our children, through their employee engagement sessions!

‘Sunshine for A School’ Volunteers Sunshine for A School is an organisation registered in France. It’s a volunteer organisation working in India, in the field of education, and trying to do their best to support grassroots organisations. They have been sending volunteers to our school every week to help teachers in their planned curriculum activities - assisting children through project-based learning, which they prepare and execute extremely well. Last month, SFAS has also supported our team with play props and costumes for our upcoming Children’s Day show, and have brought to life some incredibly creative ideas! SFAS first started collaborating with our team in Daisy, as the group of French expats were living in the  Whitefield area. Every year, they did Christmas fairs to raise money for the projects they were supporting in Bangalore. They baked homemade cookies, made small things on their own initiative and raised funds to help NGOs where they were directly involved. Their main aim was to support the salaries of teachers. SFAS have supported Gardenia teacher’s salaries year after year for the past 4 years. A BIG THANK YOU to their entire team for everything they have done for our children and schools! Peggy’s Visit to Hibiscus Peggy has been the force behind Sunshine for A School. What she started in a very small way to help our teachers in Daisy attracted lots of attention among her community. We are grateful to Peggy for introducing and kick-starting weekly activity sessions by SFAS volunteers at Building Blocks, to the point where they now have volunteers coming in to 3 of our schools for weekly activities with the children. Recently Peggy visited Hibiscus, as she has moved to Hyderabad, and we are hoping that she will make some waves in that city too and bring her friends to help and support our school in Hyderabad. The Founder, C.O.O, HRM & one Academic Coordinator were also able to be present for Peggy's visit, during one of the team's planned vists to monitor, improve processes and add necessary support required for our out-of-Bangalore centres.  We were happy to have Peggy join us for Diwali Celebrations at Hibiscus - where children were delighted to welcome, meet her, and spend the morning of fun and celebrations in her company! Peggy was thrilled to visit a centre out of Bangalore and witness how quickly the student numbers of Hibiscus had grown, since the launch of Hibiscus in August 2018not very long back. We look forward to Peggy's extended support for Hibiscus students, and thank her for taking the time to visit for Diwali!  Diwali Celebrations This month the children celebrated the Festival of Lights -Diwali! Children show much excitement and enthusiasm in getting the chance to experience these cultural celebrations at school. Children and Staff arrived at school beautifully dressed up in traditional Indian attire. The centres were wonderfully and colourfully decorated with flowers, chart paper crafts, Rangoli and small lights called Diyas.  It was such a pleasure to see the children enjoy these occasions, where cultural learning is explored in a fun, thematic way! We make it a point to ensure that the children get to know the significance of the festivals and why they are celebrated. Beyond the story behind Diwali celebrations, they also learnt to be aware of personal and environmental safety. Firecrackers are now banned from all BB schools, in supporting the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to stop environmental pollution. The celebration included the singing of the National Anthem, performances by the children and staff, themed Diwali class activities, Diya-making with play dough, painting and decorating clay diyas, traditional dance session and musical games, and then closing with a delicious special meal!  The children and teachers present had a wonderful time creating this memory last month! Thank You Thank you everyone! You made it all possible. Wishing you all a wonderful month ahead.

Looking ahead towards 2024

It’s been well over a year since September 2018, when I left my life in England. For 6 years, I had been comfortably settled in a spacious, high-ceiling apartment in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral. I decided to take a new direction in my life, and sold up, or gave away, most of my possessions, and came to India, to work on a project that had stirred a passion in me a couple of years earlier. 

First, a word about education in India . . .

The best way to get a good education in India, is to enter an English-medium school at the age of 6. This path leads on to basic qualifications at age 16 and can continue as the natural route to further or higher education. The admissions process, at the age of six, requires an initial degree of English numeracy and literacy, which can only be acquired by starting education at the age of 3 years, at a fee-paying pre-school. Such establishments thrive in the middle-class suburbs of Bangalore, but there is no Government alternative for the children of those parents whose meagre earnings cover little more than the basic necessities of food and shelter.

James Ambat is an Indian national, and is a man-with-a-mission who challenged the shortfall in the system by founding Building Blocks preschools, a network of 7 teaching centres located around the thriving city of Bangalore, with 3 pilot projects in Goa, Coorg and Hyderabad. These centres provide 3 years of free education for children living in squalid slum conditions, giving them a real opportunity to break out of the cycle of poverty that their parents and forebears had endured for generations. 91% of children leaving a Building Blocks preschool at the age of 6, and then continue their education in the fast-track of a good English-medium school.

I was captivated by this project during a holiday in India 3 years ago, and when I met James, I offered to set up a charity in England to raise funds to support Building Blocks. www.EscapefromPoverty.org.uk was launched with the support of a Devon-based charitable foundation, and in a very short time, I realised that there was work to be done in planning the future development of the Building Blocks idea. After a further visit to Bangalore in the Spring of 2018, I took the decision to move to India and was granted an Employment Visa as an unpaid long-term volunteer.

I was sad to part with most of my possessions, especially the artworks and all the trimmings of a comfortable lifestyle, – like my collection of malt whiskies displayed in fine cut-glass decanters, – but the loss was strangely liberating. I gladly accepted friends’ offers of storage space for some of my winter clothes and one or two treasured objets d’art, while bedding and various household goods went to charities serving the homeless, and dozens of books, pictures and artefacts went to charity shops, while other items raised a modest amount at auction.

My apartment in India will never have the same ambience of my former home in Lincoln. There, my life revolved around entertaining my friends and enjoying semi-retirement. Each year, I delivered two or three training projects for major companies and these boosted my modest pension, thus allowing travel and occasional luxuries.

In India today, the work on the future of Building Blocks is as intensive as we choose to make it, and James and I both seem to work at least 6 days a week.

One major challenge is to expand the After-School Programme that we run for some of the children after they leave Building Blocks. While over 90% of BB graduates continue their education from the age of 6 in English-medium schools, we are unable to provide an After-School Programme for more than a small proportion of them. Our goal is to develop a range of non-academic extra-curricular cultural and sporting activities, but we need premises . . .

I am constantly exploring new contacts and looking for opportunities to work with major corporations, (which are all legally obliged to donate 2% of their annual profits to charitable projects.) Over the past months I have developed new networking opportunities through an international networking group, in addition to the BB involvement with the Bangalore Effective Education Task Force (BEETforce - Indians love acronyms).  James is working on the Zinnia Project  - our own Primary/Secondary School for which we have both the land and guarantees of substantial initial funding. It has always been James’ dream to run a school that was much more than an examination factory, where children could explore and develop their full and varied potential.

In day-to-day matters over the past months, I have produced a Children’s Charter and Safeguarding Policy for the organisation, designed and written many pieces of publicity material and adapted and modified a musical play that our older children will perform at our Indian National Children’s Day concert next month. From January, I am planning to get into the After-School Programme classrooms myself to organise conversation, poetry-reading and debates that will improve our children’s conversational English

 My timetable is crowded and I am working all hours, but it is all very satisfying. There is always a new project dropping into my Inbox, ( - holidays notwithstanding,) and the variety is stimulating, from a constant flow of bid proposals to blue-sky thinking about the way forward.

I now live a very simple life, and with careful budgeting I think I will be able to put aside enough to make a trip to Britain at least every 18 months, to keep in touch with friends, families and those generous people in Britain who support our children’s education and back some of our new projects.

Successful small businesses can grow and reach a lift-off point at which they become self-sustaining. Sadly, education doesn’t work like that, and although in the long-term I am hopeful of raising revenue through our alumni, the short-term prospect is that there will be a constant requirement for a steady and reliable income of regular donations.

My dream is to see 12 preschools around Bangalore, and I want to generate long-term corporate sponsorships that will give these schools stability. I would like to see British schools, communities and businesses build strong ties with particular Building Blocks schools in India, so that the Building Blocks school feels connected to the sponsor and the sponsor can identify with the Building Blocks school.

I have given myself a target to reduce my involvement with Building Blocks in April, 2024, shortly after my 80^th birthday. I have no idea to what extent I shall “retire,” ( James says I never will.) I love this work far too much to start thinking about that. I would like to spend some time in Europe to enjoy the languages and the culture, and I would very much like to be close to friends and family England, but James says I will probably stay living in India, and he may well prove to be right.

I’m not going to start crossing off the days on the calendar. 

There is too much work to be done, and the children want another musical play writing . . .

How many people my age have such a marvellous opportunity handed to them? 

Let me know if you want to join me; there’s plenty of work to be done.

The path out of the slums is education

It’s been over a year.

Reflecting 

One morning, early last September, I left Lincoln in a taxi loaded  to the gunwales (as they say) with bags and suitcases. 

August had been strenuous as I tried to clear my apartment. People who had promised to remove large items of furniture, never arrived and treasured items went tearfully to a local auction-house, to be converted into Indian rupees.

Fully loaded

All the smart shirts that had been purchased over the years, with a promise that “I’ll lose some weight so that I can fit into this one” went to charity shops, where new owners will buy them, only to find they are more than large enough to be used as tents for children’s games.  

Bangalore Suburb

But now I am counting the hours and days until I leave Bangalore, not to return until early next month. 

My first stop en-route is a 1-week silent retreat at the Jesuit Sameeksha Ashram in Kerala.

I can think of no better way to unwind and unravel the stresses and pressures of the last few weeks.  

The stress is self-inflicted, because I find it impossible to refuse to take on new tasks, or to skimp the quality of my work.

Job Description

I wrote my own job description, which was basically all about how we should expand and develop the work of Building Blocks and its associated follow-on programme Project+10. There were some things to sort out before I could start in this in earnest – the most important being the production of a Safeguarding Policy.
Over the past months I have written Impact Reports and Bid Proposals. I have been analysing the effectiveness of our work and I have been impressed to discover that over 90% of our 6-year old graduates then go on to gain admission to good primary and secondary schools. Just remember they all live in slums, mostly without running water, and often with the cooking done out in the street, in a pot balanced on 3 stones, over a small fire of sticks.

The Schools' Play

Our 6-year olds continue their education in one of a dozen schools around Bangalore, but we keep in touch with some of them through our follow-on programme. Every year, most of them join up with those Building Blocks children who will leave next April, and we have an Indian National Children’s Day celebration in November.

I don’t know how I finished up adapting a musical play that I found on the internet, expanding the content and writing new songs, but it’s just another role that somehow crept into my Job Description. In November the children will perform This Planet is Our Home, a story of what we need to do to save the planet, portrayed through a magical journey of three young friends. I cry every time I get to the final scene – so I have no idea what our audience will make of it. 

There’ll be our kids – who will cheer everything – together with the sponsors and benefactors who are our essential supporters, and some of our colleagues from other NGOs. You might know a school or community group who would like to perform the play, so if you are happy to make a contribution to my charity at:-.

https://tinyurl.com/escapefrompovertyNovember19 

and send me your email address to mail@bobharvey.co.uk, I’ll be happy to send you a complete script, with links to possible music tracks.  Having rescued some very needy children, we must make sure we give them a planet worth inheriting.

Never mind where they come from, they're wearing a school uniform, and that will transform their future.

We need regional fundraisers in Britain and elsewhere. 
Contact me if you want to support a truly worthwhile cause.
mail@bobharvey.co.uk  EscapefromPoverty.org.uk