Pratima Abhichandani has actively been involved with Pratham Boston since 2011 and presently serves on its Advisory Board. She has experience forging new relationships and strategic partnerships, which will be an asset in strengthening Pratham Boston's fundraising efforts. In her professional life, Pratima serves as an Executive in Residence for the Babson College Fund and is an independent investor in the Greater Boston Area. 

How did you become involved with this organization?

I attended a Pratham gala some years ago and was very impressed when I heard about Pratham’s initiatives to eradicate child illiteracy. As a mother with young children who are privileged to have access to the best education in the world, the thought of underprivileged children whose lives would be bereft of opportunity without an education is horrifying.

I visited multiple Pratham centers in Hyderabad and saw the resounding access of Pratham’s efforts and I wanted to be a part of that revolution. I saw nursery school kids learning their letters, elementary age children learn reading and math, young women studying for their 10^th grade exams, all with Pratham volunteers supporting them.

Knowing that somebody’s life is going to be very different because you got involved is very heart warming. But, it also makes good business sense for those who have the ability to help. A South Asian study by the Brookings Institute estimates a return of $53 on a dollar spent on elementary education, as these youth enter the workforce. 2/3 of children in South Asia do not finish secondary school, and the opportunity cost of this lost talent is over $100B annually.

As Pratham President, what is your vision for the chapter?

My goal for the Boston chapter is to build greater awareness of the transformative work that Pratham does in fighting child illiteracy in India. Pratham’s  low cost model and scalable approach has become a model for many countries in South Asia, Africa and Latin America. We have a very dedicated board and volunteer base that has been very giving of their time and money. We now need to involve a broader base of people who help us achieve  the goal of “every school in child and learning well”.

We are globally interconnected and over the next two decades, emerging economies will be home to the majority of the world’s working age population. Growth in the global economy depends on our ability to recognize our shared responsibility in providing quality education to this generation who will be the engine of global growth.

Boston has an intellectually vibrant community with iconic educational institutions and we can leverage that shared knowledge to support Pratham’s learning methods. Pratham works closely with MIT’s JPAL (Jameel Poverty Action Lab) to measure outcome effectiveness and uses the data to improve teaching methods. We have room for a lot more collaborations.

We would also like to build our presence in more college campuses so we have an engaged and active youth base involved with our cause, and we can continue to grow our volunteer base.

You made the transition from the corporate world to the nonprofit? What kinds of skills that you bring will help the organization?

Most skills one develops in the corporate world are transferable to the nonprofit world. One needs organizational skills, networking skills, marketing skills, the ability to come up with strategic initiatives and of course execution skills.

We have spent the past year reaching out to people beyond our traditional donor base to raise awareness of Pratham’s efforts and successes. In the spring we hosted two salons, one with Jayant Sinha, the Minister of State for Finance in the Indian Government, and one with Rukmini Banerjee the current CEO of Pratham. We were able to introduce Pratham to many new people who will be attending the gala for the first time this year.

We have started to build relationships with other Pratham Chapters, and Dinyar Devitre the Chairman of Pratham USA and Bala Venkatachalam, the Pratham USA Executive Director have been very helpful in directing us to the appropriate  resources and shared best practices from other chapters with us.

We were very proactive in planning for the gala this year, and were able to confirm Ajay Piramal as a keynote speaker very early in the year. This enabled us to be very organized with all the other logistical planning for the gala.

This year, we have  reached out to many American corporates and will have four corporate sponsors at the gala which is a record for Pratham Boston.  As a result of the individual and corporate outreach, our gala is completely sold out.

We have added some new board members who are very excited about working with Pratham to fight child illiteracy, and Pratham Boston will continue to work towards improving the structure and efficacy of our board.

I look at Pratham Boston as an organization with revenue and bottom line goals, and will continue to work with our board, volunteers and supporters to grow both the revenue and the bottom line.

Share with us the new initiatives of Pratham in India?

Pratham is known for its innovative low-cost, scalable methods that help in vastly improving literacy rates and the quality of education for underprivileged children and youth across India. As a next step, Pratham is in active development and testing of internet, cloud and mobile based content for learning. The two key initiatives are: 1. Partnership with Ek Step to test and deploy their personalized learning platform that is aiming to improve applied literacy and numeracy for primary school children (ages 6 to 10).  2. m-Learning: This program that is being developed by Pratham offers learner-centric community based digital intervention to enhance scholastic and non-cognitive skills (21st century skills) in students aged 10-14 years in rural areas. It is already in the pilot stage being tested across 400 villages in Maharashtra, Rajasthan and UP.

How has the new CSR requirement in India helping Pratham? Do you think corporates are invested in this effort?

Yes. CSR has helped Pratham and many other social enterprises in increasing their positive impact in the community and society they operate immensely. Pratham has collaborated with several public sector units and forged partnerships with private enterprises including Bharat Petroleum, L&T, ITC, Citi Foundation, Godrej, Idea Cellular etc. Corporates also are getting more and more invested in these efforts. They have specialised CSR teams that formulate policies, strategies and goals for their CSR programs. The programs chosen by them are well defined with objectives being aligned with their mainstream business. For eg., Godrej supports Pratham’s Beauty entrepreneurship program in 8 states. They also provide program content and certification for the students. 

Share with us a human interest story that speaks the story of Pratham

In India, like much  of the developing world, societal mores bind women to their homes and family. With  limited education and financial means, women, particularly in rural areas where migration is a serious issue, suffer from poverty and are wholly dependent on their male counterparts. Such was the circumstance of young Sanghamitra and her mother, who live in a small rural village outside Chhattisgarh. Women in her family had never worked for a living. When her father passed away,  their financial situation became dire. With no education or skills, neither Sanghamitra nor her mother could get a job. With her mother’s encouragement, Sanghamitra enrolled at one of Pratham’s Beauty Training Centers. Shy at first but determined to learn, at Pratham, she quickly attained skill in cosmetology and business and found confidence in herself. After completing the course in Beauty, Sanghamitra took the initiative to apply for a loan from Pratham to set up her own beauty parlor. Now she runs a salon out of her home, where she serves customers and provides training to other young women in her community. She has gained confidence in herself, supports her whole family and is a budding entrepreneur. This is only one of the 70 other stories of enterprising women whom Pratham has helped find their feet.

Finally tell us more about the upcoming gala? What can guests expect?

Sangeeta Sobti from Janak Events and Pragya Madhvani our Boston Development Manager have worked very hard to ensure that this is a very memorable and inspiring evening for all our guests. This year we are also organizing a silent auction with some truly unique pieces of art and jewelry. Shazia Fahim, a contemporary artist from Boston has created something truly special for Pratham. We also have some extraordinary pictures of India taken by renowned photographer Ambreesh Pittie that will be available for auction. In addition, Asian Art Gallery has provided us with some notable items and there’s gorgeous jewellery by Sej Jewelers in New York.  I am sure, that the memories of this gala will linger in the minds of all guests for a long time! 

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