Daily Archives: March 31, 2010

Shukla Bose: Parikrma Humanity Foundation

Educating the poor is more than just a numbers game, says Shukla Bose. She tells the story of her groundbreaking Parikrma Humanity Foundation, which brings hope to India’s slums by looking past the daunting statistics and focusing on treating each child as an individual.

Shukla Bose is the founder and head of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, a nonprofit that runs four extraordinary schools for poor children.

The word “Parikrma” implies a full revolution, a complete path around — and Shukla Bose’s Parikrma Humanity Foundation offers literally that to kids in poor urban areas around Bangalore. Parikrma’s four Schools of Hope teach the full, standard Indian curriculum to children who might not otherwise see the inside of a classroom, with impressive results. Equally important, the schools build an “end-to-end” environment that supports learning — offering lunch every day, health-care and family support. Beyond these schools, Parikrma has inaugurated several afterschool programs and has plans for setting up a central teacher-training hub.

Bose left behind a corporate career in 1992 to found Parikrma with a small group of friends. The nonprofit holds itself to formal business goals and strict accountability, and has developed some clever fundraising and marketing campaigns. As Bose puts it, the goal of Parikrma is to help build a better India by tapping its greatest strength: the vitality and potential of its people.

“Education of children is at the core of our aim to transform poor communities into self-sustaining, contributing communities. ”

Shukla Bose

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LHC Starts Collisions

Today, Marcy 30th ….

Beams collided at 7 TeV in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research programme. Particle physicists around the world are looking forward to a potentially rich harvest of new physics as the LHC begins its first long run at an energy three and a half times higher than previously achieved at a particle accelerator.

“It’s a great day to be a particle physicist,” said CERN1 Director General Rolf Heuer. “A lot of people have waited a long time for this moment, but their patience and dedication is starting to pay dividends.”

read the rest here.