by Annie Bertrand, President and Co-founder
Dear friends,
On behalf of India School Fund (ISF), I would like to wish you a wonderful holiday season filled with joy, altruism and peace. Thanks to many of you, over 200 underprivileged children in rural Uttar Pradesh (UP) received quality 
education again this year. The academic progress led to outstanding results, exceeding both state and national averages according to Pratham, a reputable NGO in the Indian education sector. Our attendance rate of 87% also testifies to the trusted relationship we established with the community.
Two new partnerships enabled us to further our mission: Anand Charity sponsored a kitchen facility and the cost of daily healthy meals, and Linklaters (a law firm based in the UK) enabled ISF to open its first satellite school in a village called Samarua near our main resource center. For ISF volunteers and staff, such support means that our efforts in the fight against poverty and for the right to quality education are valued.
The brilliance and optimism of the India School Fund founders continues to resonate. ISF, the brainchild of five Harvard Business School students, epitomizes the school’s pillar of action and leadership. In 2005, after a visit to the Rajugela village, a group of HBS students put their passions and talents to work. On their return to Cambridge, they initiated a plan to ensure effective delivery of education and ultimately eradicate poverty in the region. 
Mother – daughter: same smile, same twinkle in the eyes…. but two different fates! Sheetal is the daughter of Kamlesh; a widow whose husband died eight years ago of cancer while true by Vandita Tewari Sheetal was a six months old baby. She has an elder brother who is studying in 7th grade in a local and Amir Abidi government school. With limited earnings Kamlesh was struggling to pay Rs. 200 per month ($5) as fees for Sheetal’s education. Therefore, she was overjoyed to learn that a new school with quality education was starting in Rajugela, and that Sheetal had been granted a scholarship by the village education committee because of her family’s financial situation. 
In the perpetual struggle to keep children in the classroom, it is clear that the ISF School is doing something right! It takes just one cursory walk past a classroom to get an answer. Unlike in normal schools where children are in classrooms according to their age, the ISF School follows a multi-grade model. Children are actively engaged in one of the 4 subjects the school now offers: English, Hindi, math, and now an interdisciplinary Environmental Science subject. 
Since July 2009, ISF is very proud to welcome students in the Linklaters school, in the village of Samarua, Uttar Pradesh! Samarua is located 10 kilometers away from Rajugela, where ISF‟s hub school is, and many of the resources used in the hub will be channeled to the satellite school in Samarua.
When the renowned educational organization Pratham first arrived in Rajugela during the opening of ISF‟s first school in August 2007 to establish a baseline of students‟ knowledge, we realized that our students‟ level were much below that of their peer group in a nearby school. Six months later, Pratham was again invited to assess the learning progress in comparison to the peer group. To the delight of our teachers and management on the ground, the results were outstanding and beyond expectations. At the request of Amir Abidi, Chief Academic Officer of ISF and Eswaraiah, Principal of the School, Pratham led a comparative study to assess whether children enrolled at the Rajugela ISF School performed better or worse than those in government primary schools. The study compared the “progress in learning levels” between children at the ISF School and children at one of the government primary schools. 
