Indian Americans On a Mission to Increase Literacy in India: Pratham
By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 26 January 2013, 00:51 IST   |    1 Comments
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Bangalore: A group of Indian Americans attended a dinner gathering in New York Last Year, a fund raiser event organized by Pratham, an NGO. The whole mission of this dinner was to ‘mobilize Indians in the US to get involved in its work’, reports Madhavi Rajadhyaksha of TOI.

The event turned out fruitful as more than 400 people pledged to support the organization. A sum of $1.4 Million was collected, which will be utilized to educate children in India.

Pratham is the world’s largest NGO that thrives to provide quality education to the underprivileged children in India. The NGO in cooperation with the government of 21 states is reaching out to increase literacy of the poor children in India. They include in-school and out-of-school children and school dropouts. Additional vocational training and computer knowledge is another incentive of the NGO, with more than two million students per annum.

Pratham USA is a branch of the parent organization, where NRI’s pool in funds to strengthen the organization. Atul Varadhachary is one of the founders of Pratham USA. "Many of us have family in India. It's satisfying when you go back and see the difference your support is making," Varadhachary, who moved to the US in 1987, said.

Last year, he bought his daughters to visit a Pratham School in Mumbai. There are others like him as well, for e.g Vijay Gordia, Founder, Vinmar International which is a global distributor of chemicals and polymer who is associated with Pratham’s activities. "We often network Pratham board members with educationists in the US. There are many commonalities in terms of challenges faced by students and principals and dialogue helps," says Varadhachary as reported by TOI.

With an informal network of 2000 members initially, the committee has evolved, growing to 10,000 people across 14 cities in the U.S. cities. They generate a total of 11 million annually towards Pratham’s work. The next Gen Indians are also signed in, who collect money from family and friends who drop by home.16 year old Dhruv Kothari has managed to pool in over $420 in a week.

"When you interact with them you realize they are genuinely interested in the concrete impact of their work.” Madhav Chavan , co-founder of Pratham,  as told to TOI.
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