Awake and Shine.

In India, good education is not a right.

From village to village, all we've seen first-hand are horrific schools which are not given any funding or resources. Some are government schools, others are run by the church. They're equally terrible. We've seen children waiting on the front porch an hour after school was supposed to start because their teachers had not yet arrived. We've heard stories of scabies-infested church schools where nuns beat children with sticks because they express that they "like" other five year old children of thesame sex. We've seen the empty and dirty faces of village kids as they walk home from a place where they're not allowed to be themselves.

Many children don't even go to school at all. You see them working in the fields, hanging around the village or sitting idly by the road.

It's not uncommon to see children working in odd labor jobs. In this place, times are tough and family unemployment is high. Many of these children only speak the local dialects of Nepali or Lepcha and aren't able to communicate in Hindi (the official language of much of India), Bengali (the dominant language of much of this state) or English. They're left to fend for themselves in a world that's rapidly working against them.

Four years ago, Awake and Shine was created as a part of an overall philanthropic project by Retired Indian Army General Jimmy Singh from his personal resources. This is a school where village children can learn skills, self-confidence and subject matter in a safe and trusting environment. Classes are taught in English. This allows the children to be able to set and reach goals that are beyond the invisible walls of their remote village. It's an environment where the children thrive.

This is a special place.

It's a small school of about 70 students in the hills overlooking Mt. Khangchendzonga. There are 6 teachers and five class levels of education. They plan to add another class level each year as their current Level 2 class progresses. The school is run by Maureen Blake, a former teacher from the UK who grew up as a childnot too far away in the town of Kalimpong. She's there approximately 6 months of each year. She's the only person from outside of this community who is involved in the school.

Teachers are actually from the villages and are trained in-house. Their passion is instantly evident as you watch the unique exercises that they've developed to teach the children lessons and concepts. It's natural. It's rhythmic. It's brilliant. And the kids truly get it.

This is a place where the children are given opportunities that they would never have had.

Their vibrancy is instantly apparent. Today we attended their end-of-term awards day. It was such a thrill to experience these children singing and celebrating their year. It was even more interesting to look at the children's parents watching from the field, enjoying the possibilities that now exist for their future generations.

We were lucky enough to get to present some awards. We also presented some gifts to the school including sports equipment and generously donated uCorders.

Laughter is the language of children.

You hear it almost immediately as you stumble down the rocky mountain path to the Awake and Shine schoolhouse.

Kids playing, laughing and smiling. This is a place where positive energy shines and opportunity exists.

We're here to make the potential of these opportunities possible. One of the pressing needs that we're addressing here is for a pathway to be built that links the school through the mountain trail to the main road. This will help the kids actually be able to attend school, particularly in the monsoon season. Some of these children spend more than an hour each way on steep mountain trails just to get near the building.

Many of you know me and are aware of my overall cynicism and way of looking at the world. Everything is relative. When you look at some of the horror facing these villages every day, the fact that this school exists is astonishing. The amazing uplifting spirit and remarkable self-sufficient nature of the project is something that should be used as an example in developing communities everywhere. It would have been very easy to dissuade me from this project, but now that I've seen it with my own eyes I can tell you, this isn't bullshit.

There are some pretty spectacular people in this world, indeed.

We all can learn a lesson from this place.

The work isn't done. Please help us out and DONATE at http://www.indiaproject.ca