Uddami India Foundation

by Carlos González Mayans, a Spanish university volunteer with UNV in Kolkata, India

It was about two months ago that I came to know about the NGO Uddami. For more than 10 years they have been providing computer education free of cost to poor youth from Kolkata.

They were teaching the use of all the main business management software, like the Microsoft Office suite. They were looking for a partnership with the private sector to give their students some kind of certification after the completion of their courses, which might help them to get jobs. Becoming a Cisco Local Academy could help, I said. read more…

In March Rabia Khatoon (UCTC Project Manager) and Punam Karna (UCTC Teacher) went to Jaipur for a Training Program for Instructors on IT Essentials:PC Hardware & Software at the Regional Academy in CEG, Jaipur.  This training was suggested by Carlos Gonzalez, a UN/Cisco volunteer working in Kolkata.

All three took the training course and are now certified Cisco instructors for the IT Essentials course. This means that Uddami Computer Training Centre is a Cisco Networking Academy and our students will have the opportunity to take this course and be certified by Cisco. 

They started the first IT Essentials course on 23rd March for a class of 13 including our Partner Project teachers, Project Manager for UPP and Testing Team manager of USS. 

For more photos of the Jaipur training please click here

My Uddami
You knew how to change darkness into light,
you knew how to make my life bright;
you were my strength, when I was weak.
you were my words when I couldn’t speak;
you always made me feel right,
you always made me win those sweet fights
you knew what I am within.
you knew when I was hidding,
you were my eyes when I couldn’t see,
you lifted me up to that place, where I dreamt to be,
you knew what made me cry,
what made me happy.
but wherever you are my friend.
O my dearest UDDAMI School
I’ll never forget you.
I promise from the bottom of my heart.
I’ll never ever try to do.

Imagine this:

You are a student in a government school who sits in a classroom of at least 80 students. You may be lucky enough to be sitting on a bench, but there are only enough benches for 40 students, although if everyone squeezes in really tightly you might be able to fit 50.

Maybe the teacher is there but chances are she’s not because on any given day, 1/3 of all teachers are absent. Even if she is there, if you are sitting in the middle to the back of the class you can’t hear anything she says.

There is a blackboard but there may be no chalk because 90% of educational resources are spent on teachers’ salaries. The last budget will raise teachers’ salaries despite the fact that teachers in government schools are never evaluated and can never be fired.

In your English class you are discouraged from speaking English because the teacher is so critical that you are punished if you make even a small mistake.

Computers are part of the West Bengal curriculum and you will learn about computers from a book but chances are you will never even see a computer because only 3.47% of schools in West Bengal have computers.

And unless you are extraordinarily bright or incredibly tenacious, you will probably drop out of school because 80% of all kids in India drop out of school before they reach Class 12.

I got information about Uddami from my father. Here is a place for the poor boys and girls to get a chance, where they can learn computer without investing a lot of money. Teachers are very helpful and careful. They always try to make us do better so we can make a better future. From there I can know that computers make our life interesting.

Now today I am working at Uddami Software Services but before I was a student at UCTC. But I think that without the teachers at Uddami I could not make my future. After training every student can make their future like me. Before coming here I could not find the answer to “What do I do?” or “What is my future?” But now I am satisfied about my future.

Dalia Paul, USS web team staff

Uddami is a free computer training center. It is a non-profit organization, where we learn computer. What we learn in Uddami, that is very helpful in our career life.

It is really very-very helpful to us. It is specially for them, those who don’t get any opportunity anywhere. It gives that lucky opportunity.

In Uddami teachers are very good and they explain very well and they teach very clearly. Their behavior is very friendly like an elder sister. So, I like them and respect them.

This center …has good thinking for the poor who doesn’t get any opportunity. …they inspire us to build our career and give us open path to success.

So, again I respect and thank them to give us so great opportunity.

Shyamali Midhya, teacher at our partner project, Divya Jeevan Foundation

Perhaps the $100 laptop is not the answer to bridging the digital divide… These are the questions Ray Fisman poses in his article The $100 Distraction Device:

So will kids use these subsidized computing resources to prepare for the demands of the 21^st century job market? Or do computers just serve as a 21^st century substitute for that more venerable time-waster—the television?

New research by economists Ofer Malamud and Cristian Pop-Eleches provides an answer: For many kids, computers are indeed more of a distraction than a learning opportunity.

The two researchers surveyed households that applied to Euro 200, a voucher distribution program in Romania designed to help poor households defray the cost of buying a computer for their children.

It turns out that kids in households lucky enough to get computer vouchers spent a lot less time watching TV—but that’s where the good news ends. “Vouchered” kids also spent less time doing homework, got lower grades, and reported lower educational aspirations than the “unvouchered” kids.

Read the whole article: http://www.slate.com/id/2192798/

I am very very much appreciate about Uddami, what they have done to me totally changed my life. If they didn’t give the job and computer skill I would have not [be] here where I am now.
Thanks to the Uddami team.

Sk. Sameer Ali (translated from Bengali)
Computer teacher at Msiha, Uddami partner project

“UDDAMI”

I greet you congratulation[s] “UDDAMI”
You h[e]ld my hand & took me out of the darkness
You gave me the address glory & inspired me,
You made one of the best out of the ten
You made noble person in front of the whole
World so once again
Thank you “UDDAMI”

Sukla Mazumder