Help Install Solar Electricity System at Bartar Saradamoni Mission

Social Entrepreneus at Bartar Saradamoni Mission in Purulia has done wonders. They are running a school in difficult terrain for 350 children including 55 boarders and 18 orphans.

Doing on their own, they end up with a deficit of Rs 5 lakh/year. This is mostly met by gap-funding through donations. A 15 Kw solar system costing Rs 6 lakh could give them a saving of Rs 20000 per month.

The adjacent table gives an indication of current and future needs in terms of kilowatts and tentative costs.
Would you be interested in owning up the project or sharing a partial cost?

This school is about 20 km from Purulia Town in a rustic village near Chas More. The school was established in 2003 and is operating from Nursery 1 through class 10, affiliation is till class VIII. The school is run by a feisty lady called ‘Mamoni’ by everybody over here. Mamoni is a Mathematics graduate herself.

We found that the campus is fairly organized over the years and has a sprawling compound spread over a bigha of land. There is about 20% greenery, and a good number of vegetables are produced locally. About 350 students in the 12 classes with higher number at the lower sections petering to just 4 in class X. Of these 55 stays at hostels and the rest come from a periphery of about 10 km. Among the boarders 18 are orphans whose entire responsibility is undertaken by the school.

There are about 25 full-time staff including 7 lady teachers for classes till 5, 9 more teachers for higher sections 2 cooks, 2 managerial staff and 5 sundry other staff. The attendance is over 85% every day. 4 meals are supplied every day.

Total collection is about 16.5 lakhs and expense about 20 lakhs per year. So there is a cash deficit of 4-5 lakhs per year. This is met by gap funding mainly from donors in kind and cash and the developmental expenses are met by project funding.

The main asset of the school is ‘Mamoni’ herself who is quite energetic, well-read, with a good amount of dedication and zeal. She is quite a speaker herself and is marketing savvy and has a commendable managerial capacity which has resulted in getting this school organized in these 13 years.

We found there is a problem of students in keeping their books and belongings, so we provided 5 book shelves with 30 lockers each.