These following links to Books and videos will give you an insight into philanthropy, India and education.
We believe that they will challenge your current thinking.
Whilst we don’t agree with a number of the conclusions, at least they do get us all thinking about the subject matter.
- The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into how the World’s Poorest People are Educating Themselves, by James Tooley. The Newcastle professor shines a light on how the underserved are coming together, community by community, overcoming the limitations of state schooling, to ensure that they get an education. https://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Tree-Personal-Educating-Themselves/dp/1939709121 (Gandhi had described the indigenous, community-based/gurukul school education in India ‘beautiful tree’).
- Three cups of tea – the memoires of Greg Mortensen who set up a charity *Central Asia Institute) to provide 120 schools in wartorn Afghanistan and Pakistan. The ‘3 cups’ refers to the Balti custom of sharing tea at least 3 times, before a family friendship evolves. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Tea
Whilst Mortensen got into hot water over the use of certain funds for personal use, the book provides a good insight into the reasons why education isn’t available to over 60m children on the Indian subcontinent. - The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune by Conor O’Clery https://www.amazon.com/Billionaire-Who-Wasnt-Secretly-Fortune/dp/1610393341 The inspiring biography of Chuck Feeney: How he found that he got a greater kick out of giving $16 billion away rather than making it or keeping it.
- ‘Wealth’ / ‘The Gospel of Wealth’: How Andrew Carnegie proposed that the wealthy actively put their wealth to best use, by administering it philanthropically during their life time. Carnegie’s article is referred to as the’ urtext of philanthropy’. https://www.carnegie.org/publications/the-gospel-of-wealth/
- Ken Robinson Talks on Ted.com, where he challenges the schools roles in providing education.
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en
https://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution
https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_how_to_escape_education_s_death_valley