Monday, January 24, 2005

The state of Kohra (the village)

"Lost in time", is the best way of defining the state of affairs of this village. Although only 50Km away from the Industrial City of Kanpur, it is a place which has got frozen in time. (Kanpur continues to be one of the dirtiest cities I have ever seen)

The village lacks roads, has no electricity, no running water, no drainage, people still living in mud houses, etc, etc. It is sad, but I am sure it is similar to 1000s of villages across India.

It does have two government school (a junior and a primary) and two private schools. One of the private schools is till class 9th and other only for 10th.

The junior school has three classes, but one teacher and he too is rarely to be found in the school. The state of primary is similar, with 2 teachers in five classes. This school has few kids, but the villagers DO NOT want to send their kids there as there is no education (although the schools are free)

The private school (one till 9th) has over 250 students, who pay to get educated. However, the school and it's infrasturcture leaves a lot to be desired. Please view the pictures which we took. The kids it in the open, amounst the dust and heat and cold. There is an effort to teach but the school is primitive. The school offering the 10th class is worse. It is run out of cow shed (the cows use it in the night and the students clean it up and use it in the day)

That is the reason why we thought that there was a urgent need to set-up and quality school which we will give a new ray of hope to the kids of this village and the areas around it.