Tandan School, Sinam Kom
The flagship project of Tandan Charitable Trust involved setting up a school in Kangpokpi District, Manipur, in partnership with 11 tribal villages. This school has a capacity of 300+ students.
It was built by the community, utilizing innovative, green and sustainable materials. The local tribal communities contributed 11,500+ hours of physical labour towards this school.
The Story
Our first project was started at Sinam Kom village which is at the centre of 11 tribal villages. Having heard that the founders were working in the field of education, and having frequently visited a few of those villages from previous engagements, the village chiefs of these eleven villages invited the founders for a meeting and submitted a written request, to set up a school to help with education in their villages. After visiting the said villages on numerous occasions, and assessing the situation on ground, the Trust saw the need for educational intervention.
It was at this point, the Chief of Sinam Kom, along with his council members, generously donated, free of cost, 13+ acres of land to Tandan Trust to set up a school and hostels. The village also donated an additional 5 acres of extremely fertile land to support the nutrition programme of kitchen gardens to support the hostels.
Tandan Trust, in collaboration with the village chief, together designed an effective programme to involve the community, and leverage the strength and skills of the community.
Every month, one member from each household came to work at the school site which amounted to over Rs 7,20,000/- worth of labor charges, donated towards the school. Some of the notable tasks finished by the community without having to incur any amount from the Trust are, the construction of a concrete bridge which connects the villages to the school site, digging of a 3 ft deep canal for a stretch of 90 mtrs at the entrance of the school campus, construction of an approach road of more than 350 mtrs, clearing and levelling of more than 4 acres of school land and construction of the school pond.
The villagers participated in bamboo works, carpentry work, cleaning of the campus, maintenance of the school site, such as occasional clearing of grass and weeds from the school premises, etc. The construction of the entire school buildings, brick work and carpentry were done by the village men with minimum charges from the school. The heavy machines like tractors, etc. were loaned to the school free of cost by farmers from the nearby tribal villages. In this way, the entire village was fully involved in setting up of their school.
