At the beginning of this week, I told you about the big problem with education here in India and about my vision for equality. Yesterday I described in detail what I think could be a way to challenge the education business in India. Today I would like to get even more concrete and tell you how I can very well imagine that this dream can become reality with the help of our Ayurvedic Restaurant Ammaji’s.
For so many years, we have run our school and charity projects with the support of our business and the help of sponsors and supporters. All our business customers and a very big majority of our donors are westerners. Non-Indians who come here to the Ashram for Yoga and Ayurveda Retreats, who take part in workshops or come to counselling sessions. And non-Indians who want to support poor children in India.
Now we are about to start a new business venture with the opening of our Ayurvedic Restaurant Ammaji’s. We will provide good quality of food for everyone who wants to eat delicious food while doing something good for their body. We create a lot of diseases by eating the wrong food – and not only health-conscious people will eat healthily and at the same time pamper their taste-buds in our restaurant! We will provide tips and information about nutrition and the body with an extra benefit: with every meal at our restaurant, you will support the free education of children!
We will soon have a lot of Indian guests as well and we will reach the point when we will not only support anymore the education of poor children but can start working on this bigger project! We will open a high standard school with really good quality with all possible facilities – completely for free for any child that comes to learn! Also the children of our restaurant’s customers!
Yes, while you come to eat in our restaurant, every rupee spent actually supports the free quality education of your child! The full support for this school could come from our business!
I believe this mission and project would make everyone happy: the parents of poor children who get education instead of remaining illiterate, middle-class parents who don’t have to struggle affording good quality education anymore and financially abundant parents who get for free what they would otherwise have to pay for! Who wouldn’t prefer free education in equality to an education that you have to purchase like in a mall?
Only those businessmen who run such malls could object my plan because it would hurt their business!
Business people of any other industry however would love it. And that is the point where I would ask people to come forward and support this mission with their own business and donations! Business people can give percentages of their business income to support the expenses. Parents can give donations which can be of an amount which they would anyway easily have paid for any other school. There can be sponsorships in different forms from furniture to food or books! Everybody could contribute in their own form! Obviously, also donations and sponsorships from out of India will be welcome.
It can extend to other cities where we will open further restaurants and with each restaurant another school. Free for all, of such good quality that everyone wants to join! Once we have several schools of this kind in one area, people will not be ready to pay as much for those education malls anymore – and more people will follow our example!
I don’t know how successful this idea will be and how quickly everything will move forward but I enjoy my freedom of creating a vision. My freedom to have my thoughts and dreams. We will go further on this road and as far as possible towards an equal education for children of all levels of society or financial status!