Hans Sharma, shown at the left, is the founder and CEO of Himalayan Hope Foundation, which has built and is supporting an English language school serving the educational needs of children from kindergarten through high school in his home region of India. Hans started this project in 2000 shortly after his mother died. It was her tireless effort to educate Hans and his siblings that he is memorializing with this effort. Therefore the school is named Gayatri after his mother. While the school educates all children it has a special focus on girls, so the ratio is 6 girls to each boy at the school. The focus on educating girls is to ensure their full participation in the region, and because Hans knows from personal experience that woman will use their knowledge and energy to ensure their family and community grows and prospers.
Gayarti school started 19 years ago as an elementary school. As it has proven its ability to teach a range of grades it has been allowed to add additional higher grades, so it has recently been expanded to the full K through 12 grades. Its first high school graduation will occur within the year. Hans hopes to expand Gayatri into college level teaching at some time. In addition to a sound education the students learn to maintain a sound body by participating in a sports club. The sports club provides a race day that features runs up to a half marathon. This event has grown to attract 500 participants now.
To attract highly qualified teachers their stipend includes western style housing on the school campus and support to participate in continuing education. As a further way to ensure the quality of education, Gayarti school uses 100 donated laptop computers to provide access to the Khan Academy, a leader in online education, and the general Internet for research. The Teachers are supported by Villanova University students who are members of the University STEM club. They work with the students on their several week long visits to do experiments and provide other assistance, helping to ensure a sound and high quality science, technology engineering and math curriculum.
To ensure students are able to attend, Gayarti school provides bus transportation to and from school for students. The overall impact is that Hans has in many ways replicated the American public school system. One big difference is the length of the school year - 260 days, a school year that is 44% longer than ours. It is also far less expensive. The entire school operates on a budget of about $5,000 per month, with forty percent of the budget going to transportation. A donation of $2,500 provides a scholarship that will support a student in perpetuity. To date there are 37 scholarships. All of them are merit based except two which are needs based. Successful applicants must pass a test every year to qualify for their scholarship.