(The Pratham Boston Gala will take place on Saturday, Sept 20th at 7pm at the Sheraton Newton.  All proceeds from the event will go toward Pratham’s initiatives for underprivileged children in India.  Buy Tickets to the Pratham Gala .

Also, for more information, please e-mail PrathamBostonGala@gmail.com or visit the Pratham Boston website.)

Charu Puri-Sharma was co-founder of Pratham Health (now the Niramaya Health Foundation), a public health initiative working with underprivileged children and families in India.  She now serves on the Executive Committee for Pratham Boston and on the Board of Directors for Niramaya.  Charu holds a position as project director for SmartRevenue, a market research consulting firm.  She has formerly worked as an HIV epidemiologist and project manager at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.  Charu has a Masters of Science in Toxicology and Bachelors of Science in Chemistry from MIT.  She currently resides in Brookline, MA with her husband, Rohit, and daughter, Anisa.

What motivated you to move to India and work with Pratham at a time when it was not common to do so?

Born and raised in the US and prepared for a highly technical career, my decision to spend over a year in the social work sector in India was unexpected.  Fortunately, the idea has become more common among younger generations of American-born Indians.  My colleagues in social work have been driven to the field by a variety of motivations, ranging from academic interests to philosophical ideals of justice and equality.  Mine, however, was simply an emotional response to the despair I had observed in my ancestral home.  I traveled to India with a deep sense of pity for its ‘poor.’  I wanted to do something for them.  While such a reaction has its value, I went to India with no real understanding of its people or of their own ability to enact change.  

How did you become involved with Pratham?

In January of 1999, I visited Madhav Chavan, the co-founder of Pratham, a large NGO founded in 1994 with the backing of UNICEF and several prominent players in India’s social work and private sectors.  Pratham’s goal is awe-inspiring:  the elimination of illiteracy from India’s new generations.   In fourteen years of unparalleled impact, Pratham's reach has grown from approximately 2000 children in Mumbai to 17 million children across the country.  I chose to work with Pratham both because of its expansive goals and dynamic, forward movement, and also because of the integrity and commitment I witnessed among its workforce.

How does Pratham seek to ensure that every child in India read and learn?

As the largest Indian non-profit focused on primary education, Pratham has recently launched the ambitious Read India campaign.  Read India’s goal is to impact 60 million children across the country by 2010, through working with governments and communities to improve reading, writing and arithmetic learning levels in schools. Within 6 months, we have already reached 17 million children and seen positive improvements in education. In recognition of this work, the program was recently awarded a $9 million pledge from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Gates Foundation. 

When you were in India, what work did you do with Pratham?

My work with Pratham began through collaboration with two physicians also from the US to co-found Pratham Health (now the Niramaya Health Foundation), a public health initiative serving children and families within Pratham’s larger education network.  Our program delivers basic health inputs by taking advantage of Pratham’s unique access to highly marginalized communities.  We began with the creation of a preschool-based initiative combating iron-deficiency anemia, vitamin A deficiency, and worm infestation among children in Pratham preschools.  From there, Niramaya’s work has grown to include other public health and also clinical components.  We were ultimately able to demonstrate the effectiveness of our interventions through research conducted in collaboration with UC Berkeley. 

Could you tell us more about your experience working in India?

My time with women and children in India’s slums allowed me to glimpse the inordinate struggles these individuals face on a daily basis. I learned that living in subhuman circumstances has not changed their basic desires for health and happiness.  While it seems obvious, I witnessed their humanity and learned that we are the same.  As a new mother, my kinship with the women I met has been further heightened as I can more fully relate to the depth of their love for their children, and to the desire for their children to achieve true happiness.  And it has been because of this awakening that I have been truly affected by the circumstances in which India’s poor are forced to exist.  As long as we can separate ourselves from the people in these communities, we can perhaps commit the injustice of diminishing their struggles, or assuming that they are accustomed to their conditions.  When we begin to see that we are one and the same, we cannot imagine how they survive. My experience allowed me to begin to appreciate the immeasurable resilience of India’s people and their own desire and ability to transform the country.

Can you tell us about the Pratham Gala and why people should attend?

First and foremost, we would like people to attend to learn more about Pratham, meet our representatives, and ask questions.  The Pratham Boston Gala is our first major event in Boston.  The event promises to be inspirational, presenting an opportunity to hear directly from Pratham co-founder Madhav Chavan, Ph.D.  In addition, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen will be in attendance as our chief honorary, and the keynote speech will be given by HBS professor and author Tarun Khanna.  Guests will also be able to enjoy music and entertainment from Falu and the Parijat Desai Dance Company.

The Pratham Boston Gala will take place on Saturday, Sept 20th at 7pm at the Sheraton Newton.  All proceeds from the event will go toward Pratham’s initiatives for underprivileged children in India.  Buy Tickets to the Pratham Gala .

Also, for more information, please e-mail PrathamBostonGala@gmail.com or visit the Pratham Boston website

Is it common for volunteers to work with Pratham in India?

Yes, Pratham has had many individuals from the US work with the organization – ranging from undergraduate volunteers to graduate students.  Two local volunteers have set up examples of internship programs within Pratham.  Raj Mundra at Philips Academy created the Pratham Service Learning Project for high school students to work with Pratham in Mumbai.  Pritesh Gandhi at Tufts Medical Center has set up a summer internship for public-health oriented medical students to work with Niramaya.  We highly encourage interested individuals to work with us in India, or at least to visit – it’s the best way to truly learn what we are about. 

What did working for Pratham bring to your professional non-profit and for-profit career?

My experience with Pratham in many ways defined my career in public health by providing me with real-life field experience in highly impoverished settings.  Even more specifically, the research and project management skills I developed – including project design, survey development and data collection – have been tremendously useful in both my work as an epidemiologist as well as in market research.  In addition, I now measure the rigor and commitment of all other groups with whom I work against the bar set by Pratham.

What are some of your future plans for life?

Whether I choose to continue my career in market research or public health, I hope to stay involved with Pratham/Niramaya.  As I raise my own children, I also hope to instill a sense of global awareness and social responsibility in them – though I’m not sure that I’ve figured out how!

Any message for our readers?

Working with Pratham has enabled me to become a part of a group in which I believe, and within that group, to have found individuals who inspire me and who believe in me.  I have found passion and hope at all strata of the organization, and in all layers of the slums in which I wandered.  I encourage Lokvani’s readers to learn more about the work we do – and to search within themselves for ways in which they can become involved through visiting, volunteering and/or donating. 

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