Sam Singh Shows The Way

The Pardada Pardadi Education Society (estb. 2000) has transformed socially backward Anupshahr in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh into a model village, offering a blueprint for the upliftment of women and empowerment of girl children summiya yasmeen Four hours by road from Delhi, the village of Anupshahr in the badlands of Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh (pop.200 million), is the epicentre of a remarkably successful experiment in girl child and woman empowerment. This educationally and socially backward hamlet (pop.23,000) has been transformed by the Pardada Pardadi Education Society (PPES, estb.2000) into a model village offering a blueprint for the upliftment of the status of women, and empowerment of girl children countrywide. Founded by former South Asia head of DuPont, Virendra (˜Sam™) Singh, to œempower girl children in rural India through education, PPES runs a free-of-charge K-12 Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School (PPGVS) with an aggregate enrolment of 1,255 students mentored by 59 teachers; a health centre for village inhabitants; community development programmes for over 2,000 women of 48 surrounding hamlets; a call centre training academy; a sanitary napkins production unit; and a textiles unit which manufactures home furnishing and corporate gifting products. Sam Singh An engineering graduate of Panjab University with a Masters in textiles engineering awarded by the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Sam Singh began his professional career with the Delhi-based DCM Group in 1961. Four years later, he was recruited by the US-based chemicals behemoth DuPont Inc (annual revenue: $35.7 billion or Rs.214,200 crore), whom he served until retirement in 2000. œDuring my three decades plus in the US, I was repeatedly reminded that India was steeped in poverty, ignorance and gender discrimination. During one of my visits back home, it occurred to me that the golden key to liberating the country from ignorance and poverty was education and empowerment of girl children. But I had to wait for my retirement in 2000 until I had enough savings to start a girls school, says Sam, who donated 60 acres of land in Anupshahr to PPES. A typically American-style hard-driving CEO, during the past 15 years Sam Singh has transformed PPES (annual budget Rs.3 crore) into a premier rural development organisation with a strong focus on education and health. Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School The first initiative of PPES, the Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School was started in 2000 with 45 girl children and two teachers in a makeshift classroom. Confronted with the untenable situation of 31 children dropping out because of parental discouragement, Singh devised an innovative scheme of crediting Rs.10 per day into newly opened bank accounts of girl students attending class, with the proviso of no withdrawals until completion of the class X school-leaving exam. Unsurprisingly, the current enrolment of PPGVS, which supplements its academic curriculum with VET (vocational education training), has risen to 1,255 girl students with five applications for every available seat. Unsurprisingly again, PPGVS has been consistently outperforming all government schools in Bulandshahr district (pop. 3.5 million). In 2014, the entire batch of…