Category Archives: Be! Books

Once upon a time in Bihar

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“When everything else fails, a story works.” – Anonymous

As a Teach for India fellow, I learned that nothing engages kids better than a good story. It makes their imagination grow richer and wilder. So, I decided to go story hunting. And that led me to the powerful stories created by Going to School. Hi, my name is Pracheta Sharma and this summer I’m working with GTS to explore and learn more about the power of great storytelling.

Stories can be a valuable source of inspiration and change. I saw that first hand, while I was in Bihar, interacting with the government teachers in training for the second year of the Be! Schools program. The Be! School books are beautifully designed stories that teach skills to secondary school children, which will help them realize their potential to be entrepreneurs. It’s a very unique concept, but the challenge is how do you get teachers invested in this? The answer to that lies in the stories they teach the kids.
We might perceive that government school teachers are generally not motivated enough to try anything new in their classrooms, mostly because they’re overworked, underpaid and rarely appreciated. But at the training sessions I attended in Nalanda district, I saw a spark in the teachers. They were excited to learn and deliver. The Be! School stories were inspiring them to be different and think positively about the future of their students. Some teachers shared their experiences with me. They said that despite the challenges of limited time and resources, the magic of storytelling kept them going. They also experienced something new through the stories they read to their students. They were able to forge a connection with the kids. For once, teaching didn’t seem like a task, they said.

We got some teachers who’ve gone that extra mile with the Be! School stories, to talk to us about their experiences on camera. Here’s a preview of two teachers from Nalanda, who share their insights from their first year as a Be! School teacher.

Mohmmad Saquib shares his experience from a rural school in Nalanda.

Prerna Kumari talks about what she likes in the Be! books.

10 YEARS OF GOING TO SCHOOL – “JEEVAN, HUM DUS SAAL!!!”

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Once upon a time, long long ago, in a small school, in the big city of London, a little boy called Oliver raised his hand. He asked his teacher, “What is it like to go to school in India?” His teacher promised him that if she ever got a chance to find out, she would think of him and tell him.

His teacher decided to find the answer to little Oliver’s question. She came to big beautiful India. She travelled all around the country – up the hills, down the valleys, across the plains, crossing rivers and jungles and big cities and little towns, visiting every school that came her way and speaking with every child she met.

And then, she wrote a little book. The book told Oliver a lot about going to school in India. However, this teacher felt that there was a lot more to find out about going to school in India and a lot more that she could do for the children going to school in India. She met a little group of people who could write beautiful stories and paint pretty pictures, just like her, and they embarked on a journey to find out more and give more to these schools and their students.

The teacher saw that a lot of girls had trouble going to school. They also faced a lot of hurdles to start businesses on their own. So she and her team decided to write stories about those girls who fought all odds to go to school and those who thought of brilliant business ideas to solve local problems. They called them “Girl Stars” and wrote 15 books about them!

The teacher realised that if all the little boys and girls in other schools were told about her Girl Stars, maybe they would also want to start businesses one day that would solve problems around them. That way, if all children started small businesses solving problems, then all problems would soon start going away. She began Be! An Entrepreneur to encourage all children to become entrepreneurs when they grow up.

The teacher and her team of painters and story writers and managers and photographers wrote 31 colourful story books about little boys and girls all over India. These stories taught their readers very important skills that all entrepreneurs and problem solvers needed.

Most of these books were made into movies and these movies were shown on National Television. The movies were also taken to villages where there no TVs and shown to the children and teachers there.


All these books were taken to Government run schools in Bihar. The teachers in these schools were taught how to read these books with the children and play the activities at the end of each book with them, for they were not like other text books. Very soon, nearly 84,101 children in 841 schools in Bihar were reading these books. There were some who were coming to school only to read these books!

Soon enough, we were receiving fabulous projects from the children all over Bihar. Each project activity showed what they learnt from that book: important skills needed to solve problems, identifying these skills within their families, identifying local problems and finding solutions to them, building a social network, identifying entrepreneurs and interviewing them and many many more.

While the children in Bihar were reading and learning from these books, the teacher and her team were encouraging the youth in Karnataka and Maharashta to start problem-solving enterprises in their villages and towns. They identified 25 entrepreneurs first and 20 later who had brilliant solutions to local problems and invested in them to go forth and solve these problems. There was Archana who decided to make Areca leaf plates and bowls, Radhakrishna who got a truck to take farmers to the market, Mageshwari who started a solar light manufacturing company and many others like them.

It has been 10 years since the teacher started on her journey to answer Oliver’s question. She is still on that journey with her team around her, and will one day answer questions to how children go to school all over the world!

My Grandmother, the Sarpanch

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My family tree, a story about how exceptional our own family can be without us even realizing it. For the activity the child goes home, speaks to someone in the family to find out something interesting about as many family members as s/he can.

As we started receiving and evaluating mounts of family trees in the third week of the program, we found some exceptional stories of people hidden in these children’s families. Priyanka Kumari, 9 A, Rajkiya Kanya Uchha Vidyalaya found out amazing stories about her grandfather, aunt and grandmother. Both her grandparents were very inspiring people which she realized only after doing this activity.

Priyanka’s grandmother was an extraordinary woman. She wrote, “My grandmother wanted to be the Sarpanch(village head) of the village, but my grandfather didn’t like the idea at all. Even then, my grandmother recognized the opportunity and knew she would be good for the job, so going against her husband she ran for the Sarpanch position and she got it. As Sarpanch she solved so many of our village problems, worked hard against child marriage and dowry as well. When my grandfather saw her do all this, he saw her with new respect and she also became an inspiration to other village in my village.”

My Family Tree Project. Priyanka Kumari, 9A, Rajkiya Kanya Uchha Vidyalaya, Patna.

She wrote, “My grandfather was an ordinary man and a pandit(priest) in the local temple. He didn’t think of himself as a hero or anyone special but one day when he was going to for his pooja(prayer), he saw that some people were getting their 8 year old daughter married. He tried to put a stop to it and called the police, but they thought it to be trivial matter and turned a blind eye. My grandfather did not give up, and he went and collected some people from around the community and together they went and put a stop to the wedding. He managed to stop this family from ruining that young girl’s life, and she thanks him till this day.”

Shweta Raj, St. M.G High School wrote about her great grandfather who was a martial arts expert in his time. “He led a highly disciplined and healthy life and taught his children and grandchildren how to be fit, eat healthy to be strong and lead a productive life. We still live by his teachings in my household.”

My Family Tree Project. Shweta Raj, 9, St. M.G. High School, Patna.

It has been amazing to read such awe inspiring stories of these children’s families and even more satisfying to know that these children are recognizing and appreciating people they have known their entire lives and are feeling pride in being related to them. This activity is a popular favourite of the children(and their families) and their teachers as well.

‘Chalo Bank Chale!’

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9th Standard student holding Manjeri ka Business Loan

Monday morning, I received two emails from Mavis Ratna Singh with two presentations.

Mavis’s class of boys is the first to complete Book 15: Manjeri’s Business Loan, and last Saturday, they crossed the finish line, they went to their local SBI bank to understand just how it works.

The project works like this, after reading the story, kids are asked to:

Choose the business you’d like to start
Make sure it solves a problem
Write a mini business plan
Determine the size of the loan you’d need to take to begin
& do the numbers (make a cash flow statement)

Learning how to be ‘insightful’ in class. Daroga Prasad High School

Now, you are ready to visit your local bank!
But before you do, write down the questions you want to ask the Bank Manager!

Just then, as I was looking at the photos and reading Mavis’ letter, I received a call from Mavis telling us about their bank adventure on Saturday.

Mavis had called the SBI Bank Manager and got permission for her, and the boys, to visit. He said YES.
She asked her school Principal if they could go. She said YES.
Mavis then set out with as many boys as possible in her car.
A fleet of more boys followed her car on their bicycles.

Permission letter.

Mavis’s only regret was that she could not take more children. It seems like everyone in the ‘Going to…’ program (that’s what they call us, not Going to School :) ) wanted to come too, but the Principal had said because of safety and permission, first, 15 boys could go.

Fifteen boys prepared their questions (with help from their friends) and Mavis gave them numbers to set the order in which to ask questions.

Students entering SBI Bank

Children interviewing the Bank Manager.

The Bank Manager, Mr Kumar was absolutely delighted by the visit. He could not believe it. The boys had such insightful questions. They were so polite. It was exactly what should happen at school, a visit to the bank! He ended the day by saying: “I’m so impressed by all of you and I wish you well in the future!” He then gave every boy a chocolate.

Mr. Sharma, Bank Manager. State Bank of India

Mavis tells us the boys enjoyed the field trip so much that they wanted it to last longer.
And so it’s happening again this Saturday.
If you happen to be in Patna tomorrow, and at a SBI Bank, Mavis and 30 boy reporters just might be there too.

Mavis & her Powerpoint Presentations

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Every week I receive an email from Mavis.
Mavis Ratna Singh is a teacher in a Government secondary school, called Daroga Prasad High School in Patna, Bihar.
I don’t receive any other emails from teachers in Bihar.
Mavis, is our first self-reporting teacher from Bihar and she reports on the progress of her class every week. In powerpoint. With photos. Every week.

Mavis was writing this week to let me know that her school had reached Book 10. Geet’s Inside out Upside down Cookbook. She needed the planning game.

Boy holding Geet’s Inside out Upside down Cookbook. Daroga Prasad High School, Patna

I called her to say well done and ask, “What can we do to congratulate you and your class?”

Mavis skipped my question and decided to share more: “Did you get my email? Internet is always a bit tricky here. Did you know that more kids come to school on Saturdays when your program is run, than any other day?

Most days of the week the attendance doesn’t hit more than 30-40%, but on Saturdays it is now almost always 60 – 65%! Now, whenever I teach History or any other social science the boys insist on reading ‘these beautiful Be! an Entrepreneur stories’. Seeing this impact on my students, I and my principal have started taking much more interest in the program, and are even rewarding the children with pens when they make wonderful skills projects, or when they actively take part in group or class activities!”

We are packing beautiful boxes full of stationary and colours, ribbons, stickers, buttons to send to Mavis and her class so they can continue to create great skills projects, and inspired by Mavis, we’ve identified another 20 top performing teachers, all of whom will receive boxes very soon.

Thank you Mavis. You are doing a magnificent job.

Why we’re talking to boys about our hopes for girls

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Daroga Prasad High School boys

We hope that every girl attending school in Grade 9 in 1,000 schools in Bihar will not drop out.
That’s a big hope.
We’ve been told 86% of girls drop out by Grade 10.

On the other side, we hope more young women choose to become entrepreneurs that solve problems where they live by building businesses.
We know that’s a big hope too, because insights from our real woman entrepreneurs tell us that if her husband does not support her, she won’t become an entrepreneur.
If her family does not take on some of the household chores, she won’t have time to work – no matter how early she gets up in the morning.
In the end, she’d rather call us once she’s married, has children, is settled, but realizes that a single income is not enough.

We hope and dream that she’ll call us earlier, when she’s 18, 19 or 20.
We hope that when she’s 14 she’ll stay in school.

We’re taking steps to make sure we’re not disappointed.

We believe if girls stay in school to learn skills they can become young entrepreneurs who start businesses that solve problems in their community – and in turn, change the way women are valued by their communities, ensuring equal rights, accessibility, and all the good things that happen to communities when women and girls equally participate.

In 2013 we’re talking to boys about our hope for girls.
Why? Because several years ago we created a program called Girl Stars, role model stories for girls to encourage them to stay in school. It was a hugely popular series of movies, books and radio – and while we reached millions of people – we also learned if you want to change the world for girls, you need to talk to boys.

Be! an Entrepreneur stories each teach a skill or introduce a business model and if you look closer you’ll notice a trend: young men entrepreneurs who want to build a bamboo library get advice from women engineers [Bamboo Boys]; young wen’s waste management businesses can’t collect waste house to house unless it’s women that make the house visits and encourage other young women separate waste at home [Pintu & his 99 friends], Bijali’s number one friend who helps her bring the carnival to the village is the elderly gentleman who leads the village committee [a man!]; and Seher, with her Bolt of Lightning business, is helped out by the friendly electrician [a man] and her sidekick best friend Neeraj is a young boy whose constant presence allows Seher to navigate the streets. Boys are everywhere in Be! an Entrepreneur, as heroes, business partners, skill builders and enablers, friends of girls and young women.

When we tested Seher’s graphic novel with young boys and girls we asked a simple question: is this a boy’s story or a girl’s story? It’s a beautifully designed illustrated graphic novel.

The boys said, “Of course it’s a girl leading the business in the story, but it’s actually a business model for boys”

The girls disagreed: “No, look she’s running the business, it’s a girl’s story!”

Our boy’s stories about including girls have opened up some quietly moving stories in our school’s program in Bihar.

The other day on a school visit, we asked a group of boys, “Whose sister does not go to school?”
Mohammed raised his hand. His friends looked at him as if to say ‘that’s the wrong answer’.
But Mohammed persisted: “My parents don’t let my sister go to school because we live in a place that is not safe for girls and women. They are teased when they leave the house. My whole family desperately wants my sister to go to school, but we have to do something about girls’ safety in my community first. It’s not school, it’s the way there that’s dangerous.”

Then some of the other boys in his class started talking about how they feel about their sisters:

“My sister is very intelligent and does very well in school. I respect her because she has so many more limitations than me – she is expected to do the housework and is not really allowed to leave the house, but she manages her studies despite everything.”

And one boy talked about a Be! Story

“See! Seema [in My Family Tree] could do what she did even though she’s a girl with all the obstacles in her way that we boys don’t have. I would like my sister to read this story too, but she is not in this school.”

We’re hoping his sister is in one of our other schools where she can read the story.

Ram Mohun Roy Seminary boys

Be! Schools, Bihar

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Little Box of Big Skills

A fun guessing game in which the children match real life situations with useful entrepreneurial skills to understand the meaning of these skills. In this activity the children write stories for five skills from their own lives to explain their understanding of the skills.

Tarannum Pravij, 9B. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

Isha Kumari, 9A. Ram Mohan Roy Seminary, Patna.

Entrepreneurs are Everywhere

A different and interesting activity in which the children in groups of four go out into their communities together to interview local entrepreneurs, and based on what they learn they make a beautiful newspaper with articles about the entrepreneurs.

Priyanka, Kajal, Pooja and Girja, 9A. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

Gayatri, Chhavi, Priyanka and Sneha, 9A. Rajkiya Kanya High School,Patna.

Rajesh Kumar + Vikas, 9B. St. M G High School, Patna.

My Family Tree

A home activity never done before, the children go to a parent or any other family member and ask about all their family members, what they do, what is unique about them and what skills they possess. Using the information they gather, they then make a unique family tree making it of different sizes, colours and forms.

Reshma Kumari, 9C. Government Girls’ High School, Shastri Nagar, Patna.

Rekha Kumari, 9E. Government Girls’ High School, Shastri Nagar, Patna.

Nishu Anand, 9E. P. N Anglo Sanskrit High School, Patna.

Getting to the Bottom of It: Problems’ Map

An in-class discussion and realization of the problems in the community around the children, leading to a list of these problems and an understanding and division of these problems into big, medium and small problems on the bases of how difficult or easy they are to solve for the children themselves. Using these, the children create a Problem Map for their own communities.

Md. Shahid Raza, 9C. Miller High School, Patna.

Saryu, Sarita, Payal, Vanita -9C. Government Girls’ High School, Shastri Nagar, Patna.

Rashmi, Esha, Kavya, Priyanka, 9A. Bankipur Girls’ High School.

My Uncle, the Bridge Builder

A fun and thought provoking card game running a Mango Business for their in-class activity, the children then create an attractive poster presenting the business they would like to start, and the demand and supply for their product.

Sapna Kumari, 9A. Rajkiya Kanya High School,Patna.

Sukriya Nutwar, 9A. Rajkiya Kanya High School, Patna.

Bijali Brings a Carnival to Her Village

An introspective activity in which the children recognize and put down all the people they know and then divide them on the bases of who they know directly and who they know through others, to make different degrees of their own personal network. They create their own Social Network Map.

Jyoti Kumari, 9B. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

Rashmi Kumari, 9C. Rajkiya Kanya High School, Patna.

3 Girl Detectives and the Missing Village

An adventure in their own localities where the children survey their neighbourhoods in terms of its physical features like buildings, roads etc, it’s people and the problems existing in that area. After this research the children create a Map of their Neighbourhood.

Khushboo Kumari, 9E. Rajkiya Kanya High School, Patna.

Shrishti Kumari , 9A. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

Geet’s Upside Down, Inside Out Cookbook

It’s time to Organize! Groups of four children form their own catering company and organize their respective tasks within the weeks and days of a one month calendar. When to cook, when to pay bills and when to buy vegetables. They discuss, plan, prioritize and create their One Month Calendar.

Aarti Kumari, Rakhi Kumari,Priyanka Kumari, Gauri Kumari, 9C. Rajkiya Kanya High School, Patna.

Priyanka, Tanushri, Sarita, 9B. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

My Second-hand Shoes

Advertise your Business! The children decide on the product they would like to sell and conduct market research in \their locality to understand its demand. Based on this research, they create an attractive poster for her business highlighting what is great and unique about their product.

Rani, Sapna, Raju, Radha, Chanchal, 9B. Rajkiya Kanya High School, Patna.

Manisha, Amrita, Kaajal, Pinky, Divya, 9A. Bankipur Girls’ High School, Patna.

Skills@scale: Postcards & prizes, recognizing little things in 2013

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As the New Year begins with frosty cold across Bihar, and schools are still closed, we have great hope for 2013. Be! Schools is a project to teach children skills at school before they drop out, skills they can use for a lifetime. Working in hundreds of schools, reaching thousands of children is a logistical challenge, but we also wanted to stay true to an emotional, human connection to the children and teachers in our program. Faced with so many numbers, we know it’s the participation of every teacher and child that’s making it work. In a world of automated services we wanted to make sure everyone received their own message. So the team in Bihar has been hard at work writing thousands of postcards to children. Each postcard is personally addressed to a child, each postcard responds to and recognizes their individual skills project: we ask about the people in their family tree, we want to understand if the market survey took too long – who are the entrepreneurs in their children’s newspaper, are they still friends?

When Sarwat, one of our team members, visited a school last month, the children recognized her immediately: “You wrote to us!” they exclaimed and Sarwat nodded, removing another surprise from her bag: a backpack for young girl with the best project.

You see, for most of 2012, the team in Bihar and Delhi, had been overwhelmed by the quality and design of children’s projects that we collect each week: thousands of children have been hard at work collecting giant yellow chart paper with glitter, ribbon, interwoven two colour drawings, intricate design, even 3D models and portraits. So while we collect and grade each project, and we’d sent postcards, we decided we needed to do more. We thought we’d visit schools as a surprise, and reward children whose projects were superlative.

We’ve been delighted that children and teachers were quite plainly shocked to see us coming to meet them personally with prizes. Teachers and principals were extremely proud that their students were recognized and rewarded. Now, there is no going back. While we will continue to track each child and school by the number of skills projects we collect each week, and their grades for each project, we know there is no replacement for surprises, personal connections and recognition. And we know this means we’ll be writing even more postcards, and making even more visits with prizes in 2013.

To give the gift of skills books or backpacks to children in schools in Bihar,
click here.

There’s an exceptional girl in Bihar, and her name is Kavita

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We’re sitting in the office in Patna, reading so many skills stories from children we’re having trouble counting, some long and elaborate, some short and sweet, some purely fictitious and imaginative and others true, believable and realistic, addressing the question, answering with a skill and telling us about their lives. Then we found a project made by Kavita Kumari, 9C from Arya Kanya High School, Nayatola.

Driven
Sure, people who wait do get good things, but they only get the things that people who work hard and make an effort don’t even try for. So then the question arises, why don’t they make an effort or try? All they lack is a spark, an inspiration, a drive..
Self-help books mostly try and teach us what to do, but my method is different. If we meet someone on the road and ask them if they know what to do or what is the right thing to do they will give the right answers. But if we ask them if they are applying what all they are saying, normally the answer is a ‘no’. The reason for this, according to me, is the lack of drive. Before we start anything or any work, it is important for us to believe in it, to understand and accept our responsibility as our own.
Our thinking is completely influenced by the amount of gain and loss we may or may not attain. If the loss is much more than the gain, it becomes an obstacle between us and our goals. But if the benefits surpass the losses or damage, it could become what drives us towards our goals.
Kavita Kumari, 9C from Arya Kanya High School, Nayatola

We knew Kavita deserved a prize. So we delivered a ‘Girl Stars’ backpack to her in class. Kavita, has skills and potential, we can only touch the iceberg’s tip of understanding.

A Box of Colours

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We went to visit Daroga Prasad High School for Boys in Patna, Bihar and we were greeted at the gate by Ms. Ratna Singh, the teacher who is running Be! in the school. As she walked us to the classroom, she apologized, explaining “I tried to call just a few boys to meet us, but the whole class has turned up early because they like the program – it’s a Saturday, they know it happens today.” Opening the door she showed us a classroom with no electricity for light, but lots and lots of boys.

Standard 9 Boys playing an in-class activity game.

Ms. Singh asked the boys to tell us about their expedition into their communities to find and interview entrepreneurs – was it mission impossible, or mission achieved? The boys told us one story after another about how they had found entrepreneurs, interviewed them, and the most exciting for them, made their newspapers gorgeous. “Gorgeous?” we asked Ms. Singh. She nodded and smiled: “ I’ve made a ‘stationary box’ with chart paper, paper, sketch pens and colours and keep it in the classroom cupboard for the children to use for Be!. They enjoy using colours, so I made this box myself.”

Ms Ratna Singh, Daroga Prasad High School for Boys.

Ms. Singh told us, “Sure it’s not easy to do this and everything else we have to do, but the boys love it, so I do it.”

Thank you Ms. Singh. Well done boys.