Annual Report 2010 - 11 - Purkal Youth Development Society

Our mission
The Purkal Youth Development Society is a
registered Society dedicated to enhancing the lives of
disadvantaged rural youth through education. While
doing so the children are to be sensitised and helped
to preserve the beautiful Himalayan environment and
the local cultural traditions.
Our philosophy
It is our belief that everyone has the potential to
succeed in life, regardless of his or her socio-economic
background, as long as there is effort, guidance and
good health. We therefore intend providing such
support as necessary to provide all these. Going
further, we believe that excellence is possible amongst
the poor if a sense of self-esteem and confidence
is built through good education, skill building and
opportunities. However, since we have scarce
resources in terms of school capacity, we shall, for the
present, confine ourselves to children with academic
potential and nurture them to excellence.
Apart from ensuring quality of learning, we believe
that it is important to make learning enjoyable and
meaningful for every child. It should be sensitive to
the development needs of the children and firmly
connected to the rural community. Good physical,
emotional and spiritual health is therefore as important
as the intellectual. The School will consciously build the
infrastructure necessary for the provision of all these.
The attempt is to build a replicable model to enhance
quality of education in rural India. Our goal is to
accomplish high levels of learning through the creation
of an adequate learning ethos and milieu. The quality
of the curriculum needs to be constantly addressed
and improved. We are convinced that it is difficult to
teach anyone and that experience and analysis are
the basis of learning. All that we can do is to facilitate
these processes.
We recognise the critical role of teachers in enhancing
the classroom environment and in transacting the
curriculum. We therefore appreciate the need for
a training environment and continuous teacher
development inputs that are closely linked with class
room practice and the needs of the teacher. Teachers
need to explore and learn with our students to inspire
the natural curiosity and intelligence that lies within
each of them.
We recognise that there is great risk in embarking
upon a venture of this nature without resources of
our own but we are determined that we shall not fear
the shadows but look for the light shining somewhere
nearby.
The eventual goal is to help achieve the political,
economic and cultural dimensions of equality
guaranteed to every citizen in our constitution. Our
Mission will bring the democratic right to education
and growth to everyone. Children and so eventually
our citizens will learn to be continually critical. We will
enable the building of values and leadership qualities
and so promote the political right of everyone to be
represented and represent. Cultural plurality is the
Indian tradition but the absence of cultural equality
needs correction. We also wish to correct the ever
widening gulf between religious communities, reducing
the influence of religion in the public sphere and the
growing intervention of religion in secular politics.
Our vision
We aim to help this rural community access quality
education. This we shall achieve through mentoring
along with attention to nutrition and healthcare. We
shall make our facilities available exclusively to the
poorest. We believe that effective delivery of education
is possible if we focus on the Girl child and so we
shall do so. We are hoping that the Education that
we provide will be enjoyable and meaningful and the
institution of our school would be sensitive to the
development needs of the children and firmly connect
to the rural community. The belief is that if bright youth
in this rural community are supported in this manner,
they would instil newfound hope and become agents
of change and catalyse the youth and bring about
transformation through demonstration.
PYDS ANNUAL REPORT 9