Nandini Sood - India

Global Catalyst

Story told by David Wygant

Vision is the ability to think about and plan the future with imagination and wisdom.  It does several important things for us as individuals and for the organizations we belong to.  It points a direction and gives us a push to begin moving. Within an organization it unites everyone’s efforts.  

Here’s Nandini’s reply when I asked her about the Design for Change (DFC) India vision:

“The plan is to scale the DFC Movement in India and work with the institutional partners. The end goal is to develop a bouquet of ‘design thinking’ products and services, and transit DFC India into a sustainable social enterprise.”

She related a plan to me that calls for the creation of a range of design thinking products and services. This effort is well underway.  For example, the Design Thinking Guide (DTG) is currently in the pilot stage in the eighth grades of 60 schools across India. 

The DTG nurtures the natural ability of children and students to imagine.  Using the FEEL-IMAGINE-DO-SHARE framework, it equips them with the tools they will use over their lifetimes to shape a better world.  It will keep alive and grow what we know is true.  Children are dreamers, and they have the vision to see the future completed in advance. 

After the pilot stage, the plan is to offer the DTG to schools across the country.  The final stage will be to adapt and implement the DTG across all grade and age levels. 

When viewed positively, and used properly, mistakes made can lead to lessons learned, and an increase in energy pushing any effort forward.  Nandini quickly identified the single most important lesson.

“The single most important lesson learned has been persistence; to BELIEVE in the cause of DFC and to not give up despite multiple challenges.  YES WE CAN!!”

Nandini’s persistence includes obstinate continuance, or, to always move forward in spite of difficulty and challenge.  She clearly identified the largest challenge that DFC India faces. 

“Funding! Funding! Funding! This has been the biggest challenge yet!  The only way to overcome it is to keep making the pitches and get better at it.  Also important is to seek feedback, refine one’s communication, and ensure that it is more outside in, more user centered.”  

So, I asked her what DFC India has done to raise funds.  What’s worked?  Nandini described fundraising efforts in three categories: Domestic funding organizations, corporate sponsors and high net worth individuals.  The greatest success has been with the second two.  Recently, out of the second category, a three year sponsorship connection was made with an Indian corporation called Parle G.  They are the world’s largest selling brand of biscuits and are a good example of a situation where the vision and mission of the brand aligned well with DFC.  Out of the third category, a number of wealthy individuals have been generous with their resources.  

The combination of vision, lessons learned and persistence often leads to inspiring results.  It did for DFC India in 2014.  There is evidence.  What do you get when you gather 500 students from 85 plus schools?  In Nandini’s own words, 

“Over the last year the most inspiring moment was to see the auditorium teeming over at the I CAN Awards 2014! Over 500 students and teachers joined us. Some of the children had travelled out of their remote villages for the very first time to come to Ahmedabad to be acknowledged and facilitated as Superheroes of CHANGE!”

This year the combination of vision, lessons learned, and persistence was celebrated at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDI).  1992 projects were submitted from across India representing the largest number received since the beginning of the DFC movement in 2009.  In the first year under Nandini’s leadership DFC India submissions were more than double the previous highest number.  100 schools were invited to the I CAN Awards with over 85 attending.

I asked Nandini what her most personally inspiring moment was.  She recalled a telephone call she received.

“On September 5^th which is celebrated as Teacher’s day in India, I received a call from a very enthusiastic teacher who was participating in the DFC I CAN School Challenge. She brought me to tears with her generous praise of the movement and thanked me profusely for helping her recognize the potential of her students.”

Yes, it was quite a year for Nandini and DFC Team India.  Job well done!  What’s next?  The upward spiral continues.  The vision is still there.  Lessons will continue to be learned, and persistence will build more success.

BIO INFORMATION

Nandini was born in Calcutta in the eastern part of India.  Currently, she lives outside of New Delhi in the suburb of Gurgaon. 

She is a communication designer and graduate of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad.

Early in her career, Nandini was in advertising selling detergent and cookies.  Before long, she heard the call from education.  She answered that call and has been in education for sixteen years.  Nandini has applied her energy and enthusiasm across a wide spectrum of education  segments.  She has designed e-learning for the Test Prep industry, and helped set up and scale an urban K-12 school chain.  She lead the design and development of a “school in a box,” aimed at creating a workable social enterprise model for budget schools to serve the poor in rural India.  More recently, in January 2014, Nandini joined Design for Change to lead the India effort, and is CEO of Design for Change-India.

Story of Deki Choden, DFC Bhutan

The Coveted Global Catalyst Series

The proud DFC Bhutan team. 

It had been a year since I visited The Riverside School, and came back incredibly inspired by the many citizenship programs that its students engaged with. It was on this visit that I got to know about Design for Change. I was awe-amazed when I heard Kiran talk about the grand plan for DFC. It was to run in hundreds of schools. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around the size this idea would, and indeed has taken over. And then I heard Riverside’s 8^th grades talk about some stories of change, and I knew it was possible, and my confidence grew. I was hooked!

Charity begins at home. Especially when it is the most obvious choice to begin with. I knew that if these ideas empowered children at Riverside, they were surely to work with my children at Early Learning Centre. The first pilot project was entirely the students’ idea: “ELC says NO to packaged food” Of the many problems that the children brainstormed into existence, TRASH was what bothered them the most, and they were not afraid to give up their favorite snacks to rid our school of it. We went to work immediately by taking three steps. First, we formed the DFC Core Team from among the teaching staff at ELC.  Second, we introduced the idea to my students in grades three-through-six.  Third, we commenced the DFC process with the seventeen students who volunteered to “make a change.” We were fired up, enthused, and challenged to begin the process -- even though we weren’t quite sure how we would take DFC beyond the ELC!  Nonetheless, that first year, 2010, we recruited nine schools.

From then on, there has been no going back. We have worked hard to increase the rate of DFC participation in Bhutan.  Most recently, our count has reached eighteen schools!

Design For Change serves to bring mindfulness to our school and our country by aligning with the pillars of GNH in the most natural way. As a case in point, take our DFC Story of “Saying NO to Packaged Food”. Young children leading the way in refusing packaged food aligns with Good Governance or Good Leadership from a young age; when children replace packaged food with indigenous food alternatives, cultural promotion is ascertained; when children refuse to eat imported packaged food from neighbouring countries, and instead promote their own farmers’ local produce, sustainable economic development is secured.  It goes without saying that environmental conservation was on the minds of the children when they decided to get rid of trash or non-biodegradable waste in the first place!

YAC, or Young Ambassadors of Change, ELC’s rural-urban school partnership was established as an offshoot of Design For Change when our rural schools began to show greater interest in DFC. These partnerships, through the pure and true intention of making a difference, have allowed the ELC to experience the joy of giving, and the satisfaction of creating “magical moments” for others. 

The healing power of these moments means that there is no turning back for us. In addition to myself, there has been only one other adult working on DFC.  Her name is Sylive Wolraven.  As a part-time DFC Coordinator, her efforts with others schools in Bhutan, the Ministry of Education and DFC World Headquarters in Ahmedabad have been key to our success.  Sylive is from the Netherlands and recently returned home.  She came to the ELC in 2011 and taught kindness and compassion as a volunteer.  Now, Ivor Hanson serves as our DFC Coordinator (along with teaching part time).  Ivor comes to us from America.  So there are still two of us working on DFC-Bhutan and we feel overwhelmed on a regular basis, but we know DFC is here to stay.

Overcoming fund raising challenges remains our biggest hurdle to date.  We have a key endorsement from the Ministry of Education, and we receive contributions from various corporations and organizations, as well from personal friends and well-wishers. Nonetheless, these contributions are small. We need to build on our fundraising strategies.  We are confident in our ability to overcome these challenges as we have in the past. We recently secured generous funding from The Bhutan-India Foundation, which will help us attend the 2014 “Be the Change” Conference.

The DFC journey has been a remarkable one. There is such gravity in the program, that good things are bound to follow those who are willing to brave the challenges, even at the face of rejection, confusion and uncertainty. The biggest learning through DFC has been my own ability to say, ‘I can’. After all, how could I stay away from the power of self-belief DFC instills in children? ‘I can’ make the world a better place, just like children in Bhutan, as well as all over the world, are doing today!

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Bio of the Global Catalyst: 

Deki lives in Thimphu, Bhutan where she is Principal and Proprietor of the Early Learning Centre (ELC) which she founded in 1997.  In 2009, 2010, and 2013, the ELC was declared a top ten school in Bhutan. She has received a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in New York and a Master of Arts (TEFL) from Reading University in the United Kingdom.  

Beyond her founding of the ELC, she has demonstrated educational leadership by establishing partnerships with schools in Australia and the United States.  Beginning in 2001, Deki has continued to train and mentor new teachers through programs of her own creation. She has education and child development connections in thirty plus countries as Country Partner with Design for Change.