2008 Annual Report

LITERACY BLOSSOMS IN THE REMOTE DESERT OF INDIA
Dr. Ashok Malhotra, President and Ms. Linda Drake, Director, Treasurer traveled to India during December 2008-January 2009 . Mr. Ken Sider, a teacher from the Riverside School and an adjunct Professor at SUNY Oneonta, his wife Heidi, a counselor and their 10 years old daughter, and Celia Gulliard (student) from Connecticut accompanied them. They visited the Indo-International Schools whose goal it is to promote literacy among the poorest of poor children in India’s remote villages.
The highlight of the trip was their pilgrimage to the first Indo-International School in Dundlod, Ninash’s Star School, started in 1996 by the participants of the SUNY Oneonta “Learn and Serve” Study Abroad Program with 50 underprivileged (Dalit) children, which now has grown to 500 students from nursery to high school. The New Year at the Dundlod School started with four events of great significance: On January 1, 2009, Ashok Malhotra inaugurated a newly paved road connecting the school to the main road. The Ninash Foundation, through donations from the Oneonta community, supplied 30% of the funds, whereas other 70 % came from the Village of Dundlod. It was miracle of achievement in the middle of the desert. On January 2, Linda Drake gave away 35 milk-producing goats to the poorest of poor people of the Dundlod community. The children of the Greater Plains Elementary School and the members of the local community of Oneonta raised the money for these goats. On January 3, as part of the Oneonta Sister City project, 450 dollars were raised by the children of the Riverside School that were used to buy more than 700 books for the Dundlod School Library. It was a memorable experience for the three children and three teachers from the Dundlod School, who had never been to a real bookstore, to accompany Ken Sider and his family, to purchase these new books the first time in their life. The best part of the visit to the Dundlod School was the news that two students (a female and a male), who 13 years ago had no other future than making a living through picking up and selling cow dung; had broken the social barriers of class, religion and gender to successfully get admission into the college of their choice to further their future. These two students have now become models for the other children to imbibe. It is a historic moment for Dundlod and the sister city of Oneonta, which through its donations to the Ninash, made this celebrative moment possible.
The group also visited the Indo-International Culture School in Mahapura, Rajasthan, which was opened in 2004, to provide vocational training in the preservation of the art of stained glass windows, along with the basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic. The school, which started with 14 children, has grown to more than 180 students in 2009. Celebration at the school involved the opening of the Mimi Forman and John Koller Artisan’s Wing as well as the John Thomas Koller Memorial Library and Computer Center; both of these are funded by the Kollers.
Another highlight of the trip was a visit to the fourth Indo-International School in Kuran, a town in Gujarat, which was totally devastated by the 2001 earthquake. With Ninash Foundation’s financial support the elementary school with 10 rooms was constructed for more than 208 children. Celebrations involved the expansion of the present elementary school into a high school within the next year; the building of a children center to provide recreation to the nursery and kindergarten children; the building of the school’s library equipped with through five computers and tables as well as 200 books. The highlight of the visit was a promise from the children, teachers and the members of the community to follow the slogan of “each one teach one,” where the 208 children would teach another 208 members of their family and they in their turn would teach another 416 thus making the entire village of 1200 completely literate in five years.
The foundation needs to raise at least $25,000 in donations each year to provide funding for its four Indo-International Schools that are offering education to more than 900 poorest of poor children of India. The Ninash Foundation’s goal is to raise a million dollars to set up a trust, the interest from which will be used to fund these schools yearly as well as to build more schools in the future. Donations can be sent to: The Ninash Foundation, 17 Center Street, Oneonta, NY 13820, USA. Please visit the Ninash website at (www.ninash.org) and contribute electronically through the Paypal.

2005 Annual Report