People, places and perspective. The longer we are here, the more and more we deeply appreciate.
Holly T writing here today, and my IBM Kaivalya Education Foundation (KEF) project team had the opportunity to travel to the state of Rajasthan this week. We took in the beauty of the land and happy passion of the people. Our journey started early Sunday morning from our hotel in Bombay. The plan was to talk to, or interview, as many of the KEF stakeholders and program participants as possible while we were there to gain as many perspectives as possible of KEF’s education capacity building programs being delivered and developed to help them scale to reach more and more schools, and therefore students.
And wow, we ended up talking with over 30 people. They ranged from local public school teachers, headmasters and parents to local and block level government administrators to KEF Fellows, program leaders, managers and directors. We got started as soon as we landed in Jaipur, talking with KEF program directors working on a new state level program.
Then we drove 3.5 hours to Jhunjhunu where we spent Sunday afternoon through Wednesday morning in the most beautiful haveli in nearby Bagar. KEF is the education arm of the non-profit Piramal Foundation, and the haveli is a Piramal family house. The rooms were each unique and the cook prepared dish after dish of the most delicious food.
We got right to work talking with people. Sunday evening through Tuesday night, we learned so much about the people KEF is trying to serve, the Fellows and leaders implementing the programs, and people supporting them all. We heard various but always related priorities, successes and challenges in delivering public education. In the end, all are unanimously trying to impact the quality of education for the kids.
The last evening we were able to see the beautiful Rani Sati temple in Jhunjhunu, then early Wednesday morning we set out early to sightsee in Jaipur before flying back to Bombay. There we saw the Amur Fort and City Palace.
People, places and perspective. An amazing journey.
