PACE - Promise of Assurance to Children Everywhere

PACE was established in 2003 as a California non-profit Corporation with two goals:

• To nurture the educational, health, nutritional, social and cultural development of girls in impoverished areas of India and other parts of the world.
• To build, in Calcutta, the first prototype Piyali Learning Center (PLC) to serve as a model for the delivery of these services all over the world.

PACE's promise of assurance is evolving into a promise of a lifetime of literacy and independence. Since the establishment of the PACE School (PLC) in 2003, it has gained success and emerged as one of the showcase programs in the area. PLC provides and will continue to provide, a holistic approach to combating poverty by bringing literacy, health/immunization, clean water/sanitation, vocational training and banking/micro-lending to girls and women in the community. PACE and their partner, RCCM, believe that such a holistic approach benefits the whole family and promotes sustainable change.

The school focuses on girls because the women of a community play a key role in the future literacy of their children - "literate women do not produce illiterate children" and when educated, most often women will remain in the rural community, marry later, have children later in life and, if given the chance, through a micro-lending program, run successful businesses, improve the lot of their own families as well as their communities. We believe, as Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has stated, "You can tell the condition of a nation by looking at the status of its women.".

Our Plan

Currently housed in a rented facility in Piyali Junction, India, the Piyali Learning Center (PLC) is educating 145 girls, with 200 on the waiting list, and 10 mothers in PACEs Vocational Training classes. Our plan is to build the first prototype Piyali Learning Center by 2009-2010 that will include:

• a school for 600 girls
• dormitory space for 200 girls
• a vocational training center
• medical and dental clinic
• living quarters for volunteers
• a field service center
• community center

Combined these services provide a holistic approach to combating poverty through literacy and education, a banking and micro-lending facility. PLC would bring vocational training to the entire community though organic farming techniques, co-op animal husbandry and other in-home business opportunities. When fully implemented, the needs of the community can be addressed as to clean water/sanitation, solar energy implementation, rain water harvesting and adult literacy. Experience indicates that these types of multi-service complexes built in very impoverished areas, become the focal points for changing communities. Our vision is to duplicate this model in many other parts of the world.

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. "
-- William Butler Yeats

New PACE Learning Center Facilities in Piyali Junction, India

Preparations are under way for the new PACE Learning Center complex in Piyali Junction, India! The following pdf files are architectural renderings of the new facility.

Blessing the new PLC site by RCCM President NEERAJA RATERIA