Arrival and Work at PremaVidya

After gathering my luggage once I arrived in Bangalore, I proceeded to exit the terminal, where I was hoping to find a stand for Meeru cabs (a reliable, prepaid cab service). I was then approached by a man who asked if I needed any help, so I asked him to point me in the direction of Meeru cabs and he assured me that he worked for that company and brought me to a stand, I looked up at the sign above me and found that it was written in Kannada (ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಕನ್ನಡ) one of the native languages of Bangalore. I continued with this company, and although the man who sold me my ticket tried to short change me, I was able to make it to the apartments safely, later realizing this service was not Meeru cabs. At this point it was 
midnight, so after I arrived I went right to sleep.




View from my window at work. ---------------------------->




In the morning, I ate a traditional Indian breakfast at the apartments, as I have now done every morning since, and went off to work at PremaVidya with my partner Parisa, and with Navee and Kristen. The four of us walked from our apartment to the bus stop and only needed to take one bus to work! It was smooth sailing from there, we stopped by a cobbler on the side of the road, and Navee and Kristen dropped off their shoes to get fixed. When we arrived at work, we were escorted to an office where we met with Sudha, who is in charge of development at PremaVidya. She was very welcoming and acquainted us better with the organization. Mr. Naresh Bala, the founder and director of PremaVidya, has been sick with thyroid issues and has been out of work for three weeks now (which is very uncommon for him). While we are waiting for his return, the four of us, Parisa, Navee, Kristen, and myself, are being inducted into the company by better understanding its inner workings. When Mr. Naresh returns, we will be given more specific tasks.


PremaVidya's main goal is to motivate students and enhance their ability to learn. They mainly achieve this by creating educational videos that work in conjunction with the syllabuses that the Indian government has made for the municipal schools. In India, each student must pass an exam to graduate from the 10th standard (standards can be compared to grades in the United States). Having a certificate from the 10th standard is extremely important to be able to get a job, or move on to more schooling, but this exam is extremely difficult to pass with the training that public schools currently provide. (Note that by the 10th standard, students are generally 15 or 16 years old, depending on when they began their education.)  92% of the students served in PremaVidya's model pass! This is because their model address many facets of learning. It works with motivation, interaction, peer-to-peer learning, and many schools even employ psychologists to assist with soft skills (handling emotional qualms, relationship issues, peer pressure, and pressures from home). This all contributes to retaining students and addressing Indian's overwhelming drop-out issues. Another important aspect that PremaVidya implements in order to address the issue of drop-outs, is pairing students together who are recognized as "likely to drop out" with a group of those that are more stable in the education system; thus it becomes a goal for the stable kids to make sure their peers do not drop out. Every child is also given a unique ID used for tracking in order to make sure they are all is accounted for, and that the organization's work is productive.

Our first task as interns is to make an educational video, this is completed by all the new employees in order to better understand the necessary steps, and fully grasp the processes undertaken by PremaVidya. This is completely for our own edification, and will not be used in the schools and so we are supposed to complete the tasks of all of the different jobs from; the content expert (who generally has 25-30 years of experience teaching and provides the content, script, and works within the restraints of the syllabus); to the subject matter expert, who makes the powerpoint with the script; to the techie, who transforms the ppt into a video and adds the narration; and finally the quality team where it is fully reviewed.


Parisa and I are having so much fun with the entire process, and asked Professor Moledina narrate with the script we have written. After we are done with this project, we will be delving deeper into understanding the quality team's role.


Yesterday, we met with Suman, he is Mr. Naresh's partner and is, quite frankly, in charge of everything. He has lived a very interesting life including being schooled through India's municipal education system, becoming a professional hockey player, studying entrepreneurship, and receiving many different degrees in varying fields. I am really inspired by him and his accomplishments, and am so thrilled I will be working with him.