North Hambleton District
Explorer Scouts
BARNES Unit

In 2001, Mr Martin Howard decided that he needed to help the his local villages by creating a school to provide a educational system for the children.
The school serves the three small villages of Baas, Gairatpur Baas and Pandala. which are run by the one panchayat (village council).
The total population of the three villages is about 1200.

After seven years and an expenditure of about £60,000, the school opened in December 2007 with:-

a four foot wall round the grounds and a gated entrance; a drinking water well; a school house for five teachers; a toilet block; six classrooms for 3 to 8 year olds; a Head teacher's office and staff storeroom.

The building work continued and by 2013 the school had a well estabished routine.
By 2019:-

• 17 classrooms; 3 for Montessori kindergarten, 6 larger ones for primary school classes (6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 year olds) and a specialist Music and Art room (first one up the stairs at the first floor level) and two class-rooms to the left pf the library for 17 and 18 year olds;
• a drinking water well wich also feeds a block to the right of the entrance as you enter, incorporating a chilled and purified drinking water kiosk (five press taps) for school-children and general village use;
• two teachers’ residences completed and lived in;
• two active toilet blocks - one for girls and one for boys;
• a building with two rooms - a store to house the refuse recycling activity and the "Mick Burdon’s sports store".
• a Head teacher's office and staff storeroom;
• and above the Head’s office the BARNES dormitory with four beds for volunteer teachers, with two rooms, each containing two charpais, and two shower rooms;
• a generator room with 15 KvA generator;
• Solar electricity capable of running the lightsin winter and the fans in summer;
• A library.
• At the far left side of the field, the school hall and medical centre.

Where is it located?

So where do BARNES Explorer Scouts fit in to this? In May 2007 we met Mr Howard whilst he was in England visiting friends who are involved in Scouting and he told us about his project to build the school. As an Explorer Unit we decided to support the project by fund-raising for it and then by a team going out to help (Operation Gairatpur Baas 2008). We were able to make our first donation of £1200 (or Rs100,000) to the School in July 2008 when we visited.

What next?

	Since our visit in 2008, the work has continued, the second staff house has been completed amd work has started on the second floor classrooms. See the 2009 gallery. BARNES Explorers were please to donate anothet £1000 to the project in 2009. On 28th October 2009 we made a trip to Edgmond in Shropshire to estabish a link with their Explorer Scouts. We made a visit to Bickley Coppice 16-18th April 2010 for a weekend with with the team of Shropshire Explorers who visited Tikli summer 2010. We visited Shropshire again on 15th May for their quiz night in Church Stretton. Charles and Adam visted BETS in July 2010.
The BARNES 2011 Team had Dinner with Martin and Annie in Northallerton on 22nd May 2011. This was in preperation for Operation Gairatpur Baas 2011. We we spent the weekend of 11th - 13th May 2012 at the Shropshire County Camp where we ran a refreshments stall with the proceeds going to the Baas Educational Trust. We were able to catch up with the news from Tikli when Martin and Annie called in for coffee on 2nd June 2012 and again when they came for lunch on 15th June 2013. We made another visit to the School in 2014 and Martin and Annie made a brief visit to Brompton in 2015.
	Unfortunately Martin and Annie were unable to visit as planned in 2016, however we got together to think about our next visit to India in 2018. Martin and Annie visited in June 2017. We presented them with a cheque and were able to talk about progress at the School.
We made another visit to Tikli in 2018, this time with a a new team plus a team returning for a second visit. It was good to see the progress at the school and we were able make a start on another building. When BARNES Scouts first visited back in 2008, they marked out the foundations for the school hall on land adjacent to the school field. It is now in use and great to see it being used for many activities. It did not seem very long after our return home that we received the picture below showing excellent progress with the new building that we started and it would soon be ready for use.
	We were pleased to see Martin and Annie in Yorkshire when they visited us in June 2019.   In 2020 the Covid Pandemic stuck the world and we were all in lockdown. It did not stop our determination to continue raising money for the school and we set-up "Click and Collect" buns and scones.   2021 and we received the sad new that Martin had died. Martin's Memorial Service 18th March 2021.   As covid pandemic restrictions have relaxed we have been able to restart more of out fundraising activities.

Further updates and information can be found on our BARNES Fund-raising for BET and Events and Tickets pages.

The School Hall Project	Operation Gairatpur Baas 2008	2009 Gallery
School Gallery	Indian Education System	Baas Education Trust's Site
BARNES main activities page	2010 Vist to India	Tikli Bottom
BARNES Fund-raising for BET	Tikli Tours 2014	BARNES BETS Shop
Operation Gairatpur Baas 2011	Events and Tickets	Tikli Tours 2018

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