History and Accomplishments of TELSA

TELSA, founded as a non-profit 501 (c)(3) organization in 1998 has accelerated action in the twin areas of: "Master plan Approach to Rural Change" (M.A.R.Ch) and, immediate help to poor rural students since 2008 when a new team took over its functioning. All events planned by TELSA aim at advancing the long-term or the short-term, or both aspects of its mission.

Quite uniquely, to the best of our knowledge, TELSA funded the development of the concept of a masterplan for the village of Marikal in a district of India and presents it at various forums, academia, media, small gatherings of rural folk, slum-dwellers, class-rooms and so on to get people thinking about long-term development of villages.

TELSA teams visited Indian villages of various sizes with particular focus on high schools and identified several areas of action. Improving sanitation facilities, provision of transportation facilities to the poorest of poor students to improve their attendance at school and motivation for study, provision of clean, safe drinking water to students, providing clean, enclosed spaces for school lunches, providing menstrual period guidance or tools to school girls (lack of good sanitation was found to impact girl's attendance during mestural periods), provision of school supplies etc. TELSA has completed a project at two schools in the area of sanitation facilities and drinking water provision. TELSA's particular success has been in the area of offering transportation help to extremely poor students from remote villages at 88 schools last year in the form of provision of 1300 bicycles. This year's program in this area calls for provision of another 1000 bicycles.

TELSA is quite unique in impacting such a large number of beneficiaries with such a simple, low-cost ( a bicycle costs $60-65 on average) incentive to ensure attendance and improved performance by students. We motivate teachers by being concerned about their students development by the simple fact that we live in a far away land and yet are so involved.

TELSA works directly with schools and avoids intermediaries. So far 100% of donations raised by TELSA were delivered to the beneficiaries as everyone who works for TELSA is a volunteer and often gives both money and time freely.