Editorial In this issue, we celebrate three years of Pudami Neighbourhood Schools, DRF’s unique initiative to make high quality English medium education available to children from all walks of life. We trace the evolution of the Pudami model and its tremendous growth over a short period of time — and most importantly, how these schools are bringing joy and the hope for a better future to thousands of children and families. Today, there are 29 Pudami primary schools and four spacious neighbourhood schools which are adopting a number of exciting teachinglearning methods to ensure that children, regardless of their previous educational background and experiences, succeed in school and enjoy learning. DRF’s flagship livelihoods program LABS continues to introduce new domains to give youth better and more varied job opportunities. Recently, DRF piloted the Pharma Retail domain, which we have featured in this issue, to meet the growing demand for skilled workers in this fast growing sector. Meanwhile, efforts to reach out to rural youth are picking up pace. We take a look at the new developments in DRF’s program, ‘Skilling Rural India’, including some promising collaborations with corporate organizations to provide training and placements to youth around the country. We also bring you a moving piece on the good work being done at the Residential Bridge Center at Dulapally to help runaway children transition into regular schools and make sure they are not deprived of their rights to freedom and education as a result of child labour. We hope you will find this issue both interesting and informative. Happy reading! Volume 9 Issue 1 2010 Pudami’s journey towards e(Q)uality in education Editorial Team Supriya Sahu Kalyani Madhusree Vemuru Madhuri Rao Dempsey A Quarterly Newsletter of Initiatives by <strong>Dr</strong>. Reddy’s <strong>Foundation</strong> Contributors Bhaskar Babu Boda L&D, Head Office C Raghavendra Rao CC, MSDF LABS, Amberpet Devendra Patel CC, Grameen LABS, Vadodara <strong>Dr</strong> Mushtaq Ahmad Mir MSDF LABS, Dehradun Falguni Chaudhari CC, Grameen LABS, Vyara-Surat Harikrishna Principal, Pudami Neighbourhood School, Yacharam Jobin P George Anoop Viswanathan Facilitators, Grameen LABS, Kottayam K Jagan SCOPE Project Coordinator K Ramchandra Rural Initiatives, Head Office L Adinarayanamma SCOPE Project M Madhuri Principal, Pudami Neighbourhood School, Hayathnagar Muralikrishna CNE – South Zone N Madan Mohan Senior Coordinator, SCOPE Project Nitya Bhavani Principal, Pudami Neighbourhood School, Nagaram Prabhakar Principal, Pudami Neighbourhood School, Kondapur Rami Reddy MIS Department, Head Office Rani Sunil CC, Grameen LABS, Alapuzha Sampath Kalavendi Communications & Partnerships, Education Sandhya Damodar Education Resource Centre Sanjeev Rao Pudami Primaries Srikanth Boya Education Resource Centre Trupti Kanungo CC, MSDF LABS, Bhubaneswar
Cover Story 2 New‘Pharma Retail’ domain 10 C o n t e n t s New Rural Initiatives 11 LABS News 8 LABS Centers 12 Special Feature 14 Employerspeak 15 Education 16 DRF in the News 19 NGO Spotlight 20
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