First time experience on Field: Bhairavi Ponnuswamy

Meet Bhairavi, our new Field Partnerships Manager who brings to us close to 4 years of prior experience and a MBA from FMS Delhi. She will be looking into auditing the work our field partners do and also taking care of due diligence that we strictly follow with them to ensure maximum impact and 100% repayment.

Instead of doing the usual Q&A with our new folks on board, we thought we should send her on a field trip to actually get a hang of being there  (since she would be among the lucky ones to spend most of her work on field). This was Bhairavi's first field trip and she was super excited. Here's her experience that she shares  - 

Lack of education limits a child’s prospects. Every parent knows so and the farmers of Sullibele village, off Hoskote town in Karnataka, are not an exception. They too send their children to school to learn alphabets, numbers and rhymes.

                                                                    



Just that the school has well-ventilated white-washed class-rooms, white-boards, water facility, toilets and teachers who are present! The school, Rishikul Vidyapeeta, is a low-cost private school and a beneficiary of a loan from Milaap. The money was used to build an additional class room.
 

In India, the public sector has not been entirely able to meet the demand for schooling. Private players did step in to provide alternatives. Sadly, however, this was confined largely to cities and to bigger towns. Fortunately, things are changing for the better now. Entrepreneurs see business potential in building and running schools in rural India.  Helping these entrepreneurs find funds are organization such as Milaap.
 

As for the tiny tots in bright yellow t-shirts tottering about in Rishikul Vidyapeeta, one hopes that such sights soon become common enough to stall all kinds of gaping!