Category: Long-term Initiatives

Title : Paper Preeti Visits the World

Share a little about your organisation

Since 2000, Pardada Pardadi Educational Society has been improving the lives of girls in rural India. Its mission is to uplift and empower girls from the poorest sections of society by providing free education and vocational training and creating a new generation of self-reliant and educated girls who will break the cycle of poverty in the region.

Executive Summary

The Paper Preeti Project was begun as a way for students at Pardada Pardadi Girls Vocational School to learn about the world outside of their village in Uttar Pradesh India. 25 girls were selected to create Paper Preeti versions of themselves (small drawings of themsleves) – these versions were then sent to friends & supporters of Pardada Pardadi throughout the world.

Background

Inspired by the popular children’s book, Flat Stanely (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Stanley#Synopsis), about a boy who wakes up flat as a pancake one morning and decides to use his flat shape to his advantage by easily traveling the world.

We are always looking for ways to learn about the world outside their village and to keep them engaged and excited about education.

Approach/ Strategy

• We began the project in April 2009 and it is ongoing. With an initial batch of 24 students, we have had tremendous response.
• When a person receives a Paper Preeti in the mail, they are instructed to take a photo of the girl somewhere and then upload the photo themsleves on our Flickr page. So far, we have received 47 photos.
• We will continue with this project as time permits

Stakeholders

• We reached out to our extensive network of friends and supporters through our website, newsletter, blog, Facebook and Twitter accounts to tell them about this initiative.
• We asked people interested in receiving the Paper Preeti to send us their address, and upon receiving, mailed them their unique Paper Preeti.

About the initiative

As a busy NGO, we designed our initiative to be easily executed but with big benefits. Once we had selected the 24 students to participate, we simply needed them to draw themselves. Secondly, we used all our marketing channels to tell the world about the project and ask for volunteers to receive the Paper Preeti.

Here is an example of how we used all our communication channels to advertise this initiative:
On our website: http://www.education4change.org/Extra/PaperPreeti.html

Our newsletter: http://www.education4change.org/Extra/May2009newsletter.html

Impact – Outcome

We measured our success in three ways:

1. By the excitement generated by the students to learn about different parts of the world through their Paper Preeti, and their increased passion for education.
2. Through the number of photos uploaded by recipients of Paper Preeti. The current number photos are 47.
3. Through general awareness for the work we are doing by the number of emails we have received in support.

Learnings

We learned that Paper Preeti was a very good educational tool, as well as a wonderful way to tell the world about the work we are doing in a corner of the world often ignored.

Our biggest challenge is keeping the momentum going for the receivers of the Paper Preeti. In our digital age, people are less accustomed to handling physical mail and tend to let their Paper Preeti sit on their desk for weeks.

What Next

We will be evaluating the program after one year (in April 2010) and discussing launching the next batch of Paper Preeti’s into the world.

Reasoning

• Not only is our initiative a wonderful tool for us to excite our students about education and learning about the outside world, but it turned into a fabulous tool to discuss the importance of attention for the girl child in rural India.
• You see, Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (PPES) is based in the village of Anupshahar, in the Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh, India. This area is one of India’ poorest. It is infamous for being crime-ridden. Moreover, it is one of the least-educated and least-literate sections of India.
• PPES was founded by Virender (Sam) Singh, a retired head of DuPont South Asia. Sam grew up in Anupshahar; although he left many years ago, he moved back in 1999 to use his success for the benefit of the people he left behind.
• Sam knew that to break the cycle of poverty, he had to first focus on improving the quality of life for the weakest members of this society: rural female children. Since they’re often neglected and uneducated, they’re forever dependent on male family members for their livelihood.

Credits Strategy

Self

Credits Execution

Self

Factsheet

Name of the company: World Toilet Organization
Number of Employees: 1-10
Category: Not-for-profit institution
Case submitted by: Jenny Steeves
Website: http://worldtoilet.org/