Project Site: Padsare village, Pali Taluka of Konkan area in southern Maharashtra. 

Organization: Prachiti, Pune. 

Date: December 17th, 1996. 

Padsare is a tribal village in the Pali taluka of the Konkan region of Maharashtra. I went to visit the school along with 3 volunteers from Prachiti (Shrinivas, Manasi and Anar), Dr. Vivek Kulkarni, the co-ordinator of Prachiti and members of the Natu Foundation, Pune. The school is residential for students coming from villages outside Padsare and is a regular day school for students from Padsare. Natu Foundation has sponsored the building of a hostel for the school while the operational expenses for the school are taken care of jointly by the Seattle and Stanford chapters of ASHA. Mr. Dadasaheb Limaye, who is a senior resident of the village has donated about 4 acres of land for the school and he also takes care of the cost of food of the students. Our visit coincided with the inauguration of the partly completed hostel building by Mrs. Kamaltai Natu, the octogenerian head of the Natu Foundation. The building has been given her name. 

On the way, we first went to Pali where we first picked up Mr. Dadasaheb Limaye. The road to Padsare branches off from the Pali-Dudhni road. Dudhni was a small, undeveloped village a couple of years back and the Pali-Dudhni road was in a bad condition. But, the last 2 years have seen the development of Dudhni as a hill station with a hotel and an amusement park, due to which the road to Dudhni has improved considerably. However, inspite of the proximity to Dudhni, Padsare is still highly undeveloped with almost no houses having electricity and the road to Padsare (about 5 miles of dirt from the Pali-Dudhni road) is almost not driveable. The difference in the development between Dudhni and Padsare which are only about 7 miles apart is really shocking. 

We reached Padsare at about 1 p.m. and almost all the 85 students were present. This is also close to the average attendance since most students stay in the hostel and don't have any (urban) diversions! The school runs from Std. (grade) I through VI and each year as the students progresses it grows by one standard (grade). There are 6 teachers of whom Rajashri and Seema (who have a M.S.W. degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences) teach Std. V and VI, while Mr. Chate who is the principal and main co-ordinator teaches Std. IV. The other junior teachers take care of the lower standards (grades). Most of the teachers are from Pune and it is remarkable that they stay and work in this remote village with very primitive facilities at bare minimum salaries. All the teachers stay in Padsare and cook their own food, while there are 2 cooks who prepare the food for the students. 

When we reached the school, the students had already had their lunch. All the students gathered for the inauguration which was performed in a traditional fashion by Mrs. Natu. After the ceremony, there was a cultural program by the students which included songs sung by different age groups and a couple of small plays. The programme concluded with speeches by Mrs. Natu and Mr. Limaye, who acknowledged the help from Natu Foundation and ASHA. 

After the programme, I surveyed the educational progress of the students from different standards. Almost all students have a very good handwriting and their notebooks etc. were very neat. Their preparation was very good in history and math. Students recited and wrote down math multiplication tables and their spellings (in Marathi) were invariably correct. All the students had notebooks, slates and pencils. The girls however were quite shy and did not readily answer my questions. However, their notebooks seemed to be as good as those of the boys. There are no girls in Std. V and VI which is because of the discouragement for further studies from home for these girls and also because a couple of girls failed in Std. IV last year. This situation needs to be remedied with some active participation by the teachers. All the kids are extremely attached to the school and the teachers and a few of them in Std. VI are very sharp, who should get more encouragement. I had visited this school last year also and compared to that visit, there was a lot of progress in the academic and extra-curricular development of most children. 

In addition to running the school effectively, Prachiti is also working on development of the land using horticulture to provide vocational training facilities for students after they reach Std. VIII and also to aid in making the project self-sufficient. They have also applied to the government to obtain the land along the road for wasteland development. Each student is supposed to plant one tree when he/she enters the first standard and then take care of the tree till he graduates from the school. In addition. Prachiti will be planting pomegrenate and mango trees on the land they already have, as soon as the construction of the hostel is completed. Mr. Limaye is also developing a personal fish pond for pisciculture which will help in generating some jobs in the village and students will be given some vocational training in pisciculture (fish cultivation in artificial ponds). 

It was about 5 p.m. by the time, we finished talking to and playing with the students as well as talking with the teachers and decided to leave for Pune. Overall the school seems to be making good progress and other activities are shaping up as planned. With local funds becoming available for the school and hostel building and additional developmental activities taking place in and around Padsare, an interesting and successful model is shaping up. The villagers seem to be regaining some hope about their future. 

- Pratibha Bachal.