When Engineers decided to engineer Doctors for the future...

When I started Paritraan – A social service organization, I was alone. Today, Paritraan has over 50 members spread across India, who teach thousands of underprivileged children, the disabled and the old. 

When I talked about Social service, most of my friends thought that this was all a waste of time. But Robert Schuller’s, ‘Success is never ending and failure is never final’ told me something else. It inspired me to dream and inspire others' dreams.

One day I asked the school children to tell me what they wanted to be. They told me they wanted to be Doctors. It was Friday. I thought about it, how could I help them in their dream? How can I inspire them? I am an engineer… What should I do?

I prayed to God for guidance. And he answered. I called my friends, told them I wanted to organize a trip to RIMS – the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences. Everyone resented. Filled with self-doubt and negativity, they gave me various reasons for not going.

One said, “What if you meet an accident?”

Another said, “You need permission from RIMS…”, the third said, “We can’t manage this…may be some other time…”

But words of Robert Schuller, Swami Vivekananda, the Holy Bible, The Holy Quran and the Holy Geeta keep echoing in me. They told me that God wants me to carry on with this task. “Help will be provided to those how seek, for those with a noble cause.”

I declared, “I am going ahead with the plan, you are free to join me!”

Sunday was declared to be the destined day. Akhil decided to join me. I met 10 children at one place, Akhil met with 15 others. We booked two tempos to travel from the BIT Mesra campus to the main road. There, I saw a bus. My heart told me, this bus is never here. It’s God’s help. Go ask for it. I thought Akhil is better at dealing about financial matters, so I sent him instead. The driver decided not only to carry us to RIMS, but also expressed that he would bring us back.

We played Antakshari during the journey. Then we reached RIMS. We came to know that on Sunday, the college is closed, but medical students had exams. Akhil said, “That’s why I asked you to take permission. It does not work like this. Now you see, there was no point in coming here. Its all a waste!”

I asked him to wait, and went straight to the Director's Office. I told him who we were and what we wanted. He was so happy he asked me sit down, then appreciated our efforts, asked me to keep it going and ensured he will provide all the help necessary for any future tours. He assigned two Guards, who took us around the campus and showed different departments. 

 

The doctors were also glad to have those children in their campus. They patiently answered children's questions. And to my surprise, these children really asked interesting questions. They asked about procedures of donating blood as they wanted to donate blood. Even the nurses and other support staff contributed with their own knowledge.

The children really enjoyed the trip. Not only that, those who did not join us, asked us to organize trips from them again & again. There was another school nearby, we used to teach children there as well, the news reached them and then they started demanding a trip.

 

That, gave me the ultimate satisfaction, and proved my theory of Goodwill – If you are working for a noble cause, God’s help will arrive. I don’t know if any of those children will become doctors, for they are very poor, but then even if one of them becomes a doctor, wouldn’t it make a difference?

A Microsoft employee left his job to create a University in Africa and succeeded with a lot of hard-work of 10 years.

[An article by Brier Dudley. I have reposted this here so that people get inspired by it.]

It took a bit longer than expected, but the university in Ghana started a decade ago by a visionary Microsoft engineer finally has its own campus.

Ashesi University is moving from rented space in the city of Accra to a 100-acre suburban campus formally opening Saturday.

A contingent of supporters from the U.S. — many with Microsoft ties — will join ambassadors, Ghanaian officials and village chiefs for the opening.

Several said the campus is much more than a collection of new buildings for the school. It represents the vision and commitment of Patrick Awuah, who left the security of a job writing software in Redmond to pursue a crazy dream building a university in his homeland.

Awuah, 46, wasn't one of the Microsoft stock-option jillionaires. He was just an engineer in his 30s with an audacious idea he left to pursue in 1997.

Awuah's goal was to offer Ivy League-caliber education in Africa, to create ethical, broad-minded leaders who would go on to elevate the continent.

That started happening even before ground was broken on the campus, where the first students began moving into dorms last week.

Ashesi began offering classes in 2002, and enrollment has grown from 30 to about 500. Most graduates have stayed in Africa and all have jobs in fields such as finance, technology and education.

In 2008, the school began breaking even financially and started raising money for the campus — just as the economy crashed. But Ashesi's early success helped raise $6.9 million for the project.

Among Awuah's early backers was Paul Maritz, a Zimbabwe-born former top Microsoft executive now chief executive of VMware in Palo Alto, Calif.

"Ultimately, the future of Africa lies in the hands of Africans, and in particular a new generation of leaders who can give the continent the leadership it deserves," Maritz said via email. "Ashesi represents an extraordinary effort by a true African hero [Patrick] to prepare this next generation of leadership and imbue it with the values that they will need."

Awuah said he's thrilled and relieved that the campus is finally open, but his project continues.

"It feels wonderful to be in our own space and it's a major milestone for us, but no, we're not done," he said.

 

 

Growing new majors

After the opening ceremonies, Awuah is meeting with trustees to chart the school's next decade of growth.

Plans aren't final yet, but Ashesi is likely to begin offering new majors in engineering and science — in addition to the current, four-year degrees in computer science, business administration and management information systems.

Ashesi already has been working on curriculum with Awuah's alma mater, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. He arrived there from Ghana with a scholarship and was hired by Microsoft after he graduated.

Among people he initially worked with was Mike Murray, who co-founded the international philanthropy Unitus after retiring from Microsoft in 1999. Murray and his wife gave Awuah one of his first grants.

"Ashesi's unique in that it takes an extremely bold vision and courage to say, 'I'm going to start a new university in a developing country from the ground up,' " Murray said. "The common response to that would be, 'You're nuts' or, 'You're crazy.' "

It turned out to be a great investment. One college graduate in Ghana potentially helps up to 100,000 others directly and indirectly, Murray said.

"Not only are you going to help individuals, it's going to help the entire country," he said. "The proof is in the pudding — the goal and the dream was that these students would get great educations and then stay in country, and that is proving to be what's happening."

The campus will keep growing. It can now accommodate 550, with room for most in its dorms, but there's space for 2,000 students eventually.

Among those at Saturday's ceremony will be Ruth and Todd Warren of Seattle, who helped raise money for the campus and will have the library named after them. Todd Warren retired from Microsoft in 2009 as vice president of Windows Mobile and is on Ashesi's board, and Ruth Warren led the campus capital campaign.

 

 

"Unique model"

"We're so excited to have the campus and buildings but the school is more than that. We have this unique educational model," she said. "We couldn't have done this and built the campus without proving that the model works. The success of our graduates provides this."

One priority may be adding more space for large gatherings.

The school has a central courtyard that serves as a natural amphitheater. That's where Saturday's ceremony was going to be held.

But a regional chief invited so many other chiefs and dignitaries that more than 1,000 attendees are expected. Events had to be moved to a larger, open space that serves as a parking lot.

When Ashesi asked the chief about the protocol for such events, "He basically told us we didn't understand how significant this was — this is the first university in the whole region and they really care about education, and they invited all the chiefs from this whole traditional area," said Matt Taggart, associate director of development.

 

 

"Bottom-up change"

Maritz also sees broader significance in the school's milestone.

"The most leveraged thing those of us on the outside of Africa can do is to support these kinds of efforts to bring about deep, bottom-up change. Everything else is just a Band-Aid," he said.

"The fact that Ashesi has survived its infancy and is now entering into the next phase of its growth is an enormous testament to what can be done with comparatively modest resources to create what Africa most needs, which is lasting and effective institutions — the new campus is the visible symbol of that."

Awuah said he's especially pleased that alumni, students and faculty contributed to the school's permanent home.

"I can feel it when the staff sees the donor wall. The pride they have is phenomenal," he said. "It feels great."

Brier Dudley's column appears Mondays. Reach him at 206-515-5687 or bdudley@seattletimes.com.

The Paritraan Prayer.

Every Society or Organization has some kind of a trademark. May that be a Tag-Line, a slogan, a logo or something else. However, the institutions and organizations related to Educational Activities or Social Services have trademarks in the form of Prayer.

The irony is that, more often than not, Prayer is mis-understood by people in general. So before going through this article, I recommend that you visit this blog-post about prayer.

Many prayers in the form of verses, 'Shlokas' and 'Sutras' exist in Sanskrit and Hindi. There are many really good prayers in English too. I have been reciting many of them, they are just uncountable. Each one of them is special, simply brilliant. One can't say which is better, that's foolish because they are all divine!

However, there has to be something really specific that depicts the heart and soul of paritraan - so here's a poem from one of Dr Robert H. Schuller's Books 'Believe in the God, who believes in you'.

The prayer is-

"I offer my life to You, God, for You to live in me and through me.

Here is my face - shine from it.

Here are my ears - hear the cry of hurting persons through them.

Here are my eyes - see the faces of those who need Your blessing and bless them with the healing look that radiates from You, my Lord, through my eyes.

Here's my tongue - speak through it!Speak the words of encouragement! Affirmation!

Here, O Lord, are my hands - use them to touch, hold, lift and steady another human being.

Here, O Lord are my feet - walk where You want me to go. And may those who follow me be following You!"

Please let me know your views on the same. Well, I am not imposing this poem on anyone! Its just that as Paritraan grows (which it continues to) I dream to build my own schools and there I would love to have this prayer. Also, I request all Paritraan  members to go through this prayer and give it a thought.