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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

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http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=29852

INDIAN EXPRESS, AUGUST 18, 2003

MNC boss finds his vocation: He's his village schoolmaster

DuPont's South Asia chief returned home to Bichaula and, in 3
yrs, transformed lives of girls from poor homes

Vijay Rana

Anupshahr, August 17: When Virendra 'Sam' Singh, head of
DuPont's South Asia operations, returned after 35 years in the US, he
did not pick a condominium in one of New Delhi's upscale suburbs to
settle down. He went back to Bichaula, near Anupshahr in UP's
Bulandshahr, where he was born and where nothing much had changed
since he left.

The man who once sat in boardrooms to discuss strategies and
dealt with textile magnates now sits under a jamun tree. Around him
are some of the 350 village girls whose lives have changed since
Singh's return.

He has set up a vocational school for them. Why not boys? ''If
you teach a girl, you teach a family,'' he says. These are the
daughters of landless farmers. If they were not coming to Pardada
Pardadi Vocational School, they would either be stealing grass or
firewood.

Study time is divided into two sessions: pre-lunch session is
for the formal school, all subjects the national curriculum demands
are taught; post-lunch is time for vocational education.

The girls are trained in stitching, weaving and chikan work for
a year, then they are taught marketing skills. Singh's teachers come
from all over the country - from Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. They
are skilled and committed to his social experiment.

It all began three years ago. His two daughters had been
married. His career at DuPont had peaked and he seemed to have earned
enough to throw away a few hundred thousand dollars for what he
really wanted to do. Friends thought he was crazy. ''I still wake up
in the morning in disbelief - where am I and what am I doing?''

Initially, he approached villagers, door-to-door, pleading with
poor farmers to send their girls to his school. ''When I told them
that the girls will get not only free education, but free food and
free uniform, most people wanted to know what the catch was.''

The girls get breakfast, lunch, tea and snacks. They get
uniforms, and bicycles when they grow up. Also, each girl gets Rs 10
a day and the money is put into a fixed deposit. ''A 10-year-old girl
will have about Rs 100,000 in her account when she is 21. If she
leaves school early, she will still get her money,'' he says.

Singh is bringing to the village a new culture. Every day a
team of 14 girls is put on kitchen duty. They learn cooking under the
supervision of their teachers. ''Look at the cleanliness, this is
cleaner than most kitchens in India,'' he says.

So is the toilet. ''Nobody came forward to clean the toilet. So
I took up the cleaning myself and the girls followed,'' he says.

They produce world-class home furnishings, curtains, cushions,
bedspreads and wall hangings. The designing is done by Delhi-based
marketing executive Madhu Singh. She also markets the stuff and buys
fabrics, threads and beads.

They have their clients abroad - from a departmental store in
South Africa to a Californian online store, Novita.com. ''Novita is
doing good business, our stuff sells very fast,'' says Madhu Singh.
Delhi's Central Cottage Industries Emporium is their only Indian
buyer.

''I want to make this institution sustainable, so that it could
run once I am gone,'' says Singh. The annual running cost is around
Rs 700,000. Last year Madhu managed to sell goods worth Rs 400,000.
Singh has plans to invest $500,000 in the project that would support
600 girls. And it's his own money. So far he has spent Rs 1.2 crore.
Now that the project is running successfully, Singh wouldn't mind
accepting donations. The only donation he has got so far is two
bicycles.

Approaching 60, Singh is full of energy. Just the other day, he
made the 100-km rib-cracking journey from Delhi on a monsoon-ravaged
road to bring 35 sewing machines in his Toyota Qualis.

Singh remembers what he told himself when he came to India: ''I
will give myself three years. I will not talk about my school. If I
fail, I will quietly return to America.'' But now he has no plans to
leave.

A detailed interview with Virendra Sam Singh is available at
Vijay Rana's website for global Indians, www.historytalking.com

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