Blog

This Christmas our schools organized a program to celebrate the love of God. Our schools in Delhi had a fun time of songs, dance, food and gifts. In Delhi, the schools have been permitted to operate whereas the schools in Pune are still under restriction from the state government and not allowed to open. So the teacher and staff of the Pune school packed a gift and candies for each student, along with a food package for their family.

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The Indian central government recently introduced a National Education Policy that seeks to implement systemic changes in the education system in India. The NEP was introduced in the midst of a national response to the Covid-19 pandemic that has been sweeping across the country. A number of states have ordered the closure of all schools in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The three schools that are operated by Kripa are currently all closed as a result of these state directives.

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Pooja has dark intense eyes. The entire morning that I was at the Kripa school in Mumbai, I had not yet seen her smile or laugh like the other children. A 7-year old, she would talk in whispers to her friend, her small eyes flitting around in case anyone was looking at her. She engaged in her class assignments with rapt attention and had no time for playing around like the other children. During play-time she made sure that she was always next to the teacher, almost in her shadows. Read More

As I entered the classroom, I got a few ‘good mornings’; while others simply smiled shyly at me. Some of them asked me loads of questions. 3-year old Ansh was using a chalk to draw lines on his small chalkboard like the other children; except that he would start the chalk line from up his arm and continue right on to the chalkboard. The few, short, white strokes of the chalk on his little dark arm reminded me of a Zebra! The teacher of course told him that was not the thing to be done and he promptly wiped off all the chalk marks from his arm. There goes my Zebra, I thought! Read More

I was nervous as I walked down a long corridor with the teacher. I didn’t know what to expect. Having walked through a dirty street in what looked like the end of a forgotten and largely neglected part of town I wasn’t really expecting a clean environment.

Then I walked in to a chorus of “Good Morning, Teacher! Good Morning Teacher!” (repeated at least five times) and I forgot about the surroundings. I was looking at a bunch of little children with faces scrubbed and powdered, in their cleanest clothes, all ready to learn. I could feel Read More

Cricket is one of the most popular sports in India. In the cities in India, most open grounds, parks, lanes and by-lanes become playing field. On any given day a visitor would be sure to come across an open field with hoards of children playing cricket. As a rule however, you would find this only during the early evening of a regular weekday. During the day, it is generally the children with no school to go to who would be playing cricket in these fields or parks. Read More

Human trafficking. Those words conjure up images of dark rooms, grainy black and white footage and men speaking a foreign language. This is quickly followed by a Liam Neelon like character kicking his way into the room with guns blazing, killing the bad guys and saving the girls as depicted in the recent film Taken.  Unfortunately, human trafficking is not a problem isolated to other countries. It thrives right here in the United States. Depending on which source you read, Human Trafficking is either the second or third largest Criminal Enterprise with approximately $32,000,000,000,000 (Billion) dollars changing hands on a yearly basis or $87,000,000,000 (Million) daily.  That is right up there with Drug Trafficking and Arms Smuggling. Read More

An American is at a business meeting in Rio de Janeiro in a room full of Brazilians.  Things are going well, they are eating out of the palm of his hand. He ends his presentation and asks for questions. A young man in the front row asks him what he thinks of Rio. “Love it!” he replies and gives them the okay sign. When he asks for more questions he realizes the mood has soured in the room.  Read More