A gift to his homeland

Distance is no barrier to the conscience and commitment of a Manawatu¯ man, who founded a school in his Indian hometown more than 12,000 kilometres away.

Vikas Gaur felt blessed to have received a good education, which eventually led him to Palmerston North and his job as a senior engineer for Fonterra.

Many people from the part of Delhi he grew up in never got the same chances he did, he said. But his relative good fortune meant he was in a position to make a difference.

He founded Cross Primary School for the poor in his old neighbourhood, which he’s funded and run from New Zealand for the past 11 years.

Gaur said he was jolted into action in 2007, while visiting family in Delhi.

He found himself talking with his dad, a former headmaster, about the poor state of education in the area.

Despite government incentives, many families couldn’t afford to send their children to school, and many who did go were still basically illiterate when they left, Gaur said. ‘‘So I thought ... we could help, because if you don’t get those skills what’s the point of going to school?’’

Gaur returned home with a vision for an affordable school that would work with the community to ensure children got a proper education. He got friends, family, and colleagues to contribute, held fundraisers and raided his savings to make it real.

They pulled together enough money to hire a teacher and run some primary school classes. It was small, but it was a start.

Since then one teacher has become four.

Cross Primary School was granted charitable status by the Indian government, and Gaur’s group secured flats in an apartment building to give the school a single home.

The school also added some vocational courses to its curriculum for the neighbourhood’s adults.

‘‘We saw the need to empower not just kids, but the women and men. We wanted to teach people skills they could use to support themselves and their families.’’

The school had enough income to cover half its costs, but he dreamed of making it selfsufficient.

He planned to build or buy a proper campus, and to start a company to employ the vocational course graduates – selling clothes and schoolbags online.

This would give them reliable income, and the profits would go back into improving the school.

Palmerston North man Vikas Gaur runs an school for poor families in the Delhi neighbourhood he grew up in. He founded the school 11 years ago.

A Class at the Delhi school Gauer set up after discussion with his exheadmaster father about poor families being unable to afford schooling.