How crowdfunding is
changing govt school classes @ Mydilse.org
Meerut: Every time Priyanka Singh, a teacher at Upper
Primary School, Barabanki, UP, had to explain to her students complex
scientific concepts that required colour coding to differentiate between ideas,
she would wish for a whiteboard instead of the existing blackboard. She had
tried getting donations for her school from locals but in vain.
Then someone told her about an online fundraising platform for
educators in India. She started a campaign for a whiteboard and to her surprise,
the crowdfunding for it was completed in a week.
“I now have a whiteboard. I even got a projector for them,” Singh told TOI.
Hundreds of teachers in rural India have adopted Mydilse.org
for crowdfunding, assisted in their ardent pleas for help by a dedicated bunch
of students from IIMs. There are also other such platforms helping out schools.
The steps are simple: a teacher seeking something for her school
has to register on the website — which is for free — and start a campaign
citing reasons for its need with some pictures and description. She is then
assisted by interns hired from IIMs who validate the teachers by getting their
ID cards. The next step is to put up the commodity with the best price on their
campaign page.
After this, the crowdfunding follows – which is, so far, limited
only to India. When enough money is collected, the commodity is purchased from
an online shopping giant and voila! It is delivered to the teacher’s school.
Crowdfunding is slowly getting popular in the education sector.
Started last year, Edudharma —which is said to be the first crowdfunding
website for education—identifies a candidate and creates their profile on their
website so others can fund their education. The website even gives the donors
the academic background of the students so that they can choose who they want
to fund and are also satisfied that their money is reaching the right
candidate.
Founder of Mydilse.org Naveen Pallayil
said, “I was admitted to a government school near my village in Hyderabad
because my parents couldn’t afford a private school. I understand the
importance of government schools. Therefore, I strive to improve the system
through this platform. I had started off with adopting schools, reconstructing
them and giving them the facilities they need, but then I realized that it took
a lot of my time and also benefited only limited number of children.”
Pallayil is the director of an American software MNC in Hyderabad
and has gotten in touch with the placement cells of IIM Indore and IIM Kashipur
to get interns for Mydilse.org. So far,
hundreds of teachers have got items ranging from rugs to furniture, shelves and
even CCTV cameras.
Pratap Reddy, headmaster, MPPS Government School,
Ramachandrapuram, Andhra Pradesh, said, “The school had a computer and TV but
no internet. We started a campaign to get a broadband connection and a router,
which reached us within 10 days.”
Vipul Wakkar, a student at IIM Indore’s Mumbai campus, said, “I
started interning with Mydilse in 2017. My work involves preparing the campaign
for teachers and spreading the word about the online fundraising platform among
groups of government school teachers on social media.”
Source | Times of India | 22nd February 2018
Regards
Prof. Pralhad Jadhav
Master of Library &
Information Science (NET Qualified)
Senior Manager @ Knowledge
Repository
Khaitan & Co
Twitter Handle | @Pralhad161978
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