Thirteen-year-old Santhosh is emphatic that Parikrma's is the first school he has attended and not got bored out of his mind. One of the reasons why 12-year-old Kumar likes to come to this school is because the teachers teach in English and this will help him read English newspapers.

Santhosh and Kumar are but two examples of children who could have been on the street, receiving no education at all. With the intervention of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, Bangalore, they are being given a second chance at life…and living.

When I meet Shukla Bose, the Bangalore-based founder-CEO, Parikrma, on my recent visit to the Garden City, her opening words almost stun me into silence. "I was mentally writing my obituary. I had power, exposure, experience, respect and key roles at the FICCI and CII. Yet, I felt that eventually I would be doing the same thing, over and over again here. I got restless, as I wanted to make a difference to society, leave a lasting legacy," says Bose, who was reportedly the highest paid woman executive in India in her last corporate assignment as managing director, Resort Condominiums India.

After two decades in the upper echelons of the corporate world, Bose took the plunge and made an extraordinary career switch so that she could serve the poor slum children in Bangalore."I accepted the offer of Christel de Haan, the promoter of RCI to start Christel House, a free school for orphaned and abandoned children in the city. There were too many hurdles though and I soon realised that this was not what I had set out to achieve. Rather than continue half-heartedly, I called it a day and quit."

Initially disheartened by this setback, Bose's institution building skills that had distinguished her corporate career, soon propelled her forward in her own mission to empower slum children through the provision of equal opportunity education in English. With the other founding members, she formed the Parikrma Humanity Foundation. "I put in all my life's savings to start Parikrma and my husband and daughter supported me completely," says Bose. "In the summer of 2003, we began with 325 children; now we have 740 children from 26 slums studying with us."

Bose lost no time in registering the new non-profit company and since then the foundation has persuaded several companies like Levi Strauss, TNT, Adobe Systems and Yahoo to sponsor its four centres of learning, located in the midst of urban Bangalore. "The schools have to be centrally located so that the children can walk there safely alone," says Bose.

Now affectionately known as Akka (sister in Kannada), Bose remembers how her new role called for a new way of dressing: "Earlier, I was always dressed in Western outfits suitable for formal board room meetings, but now I am always traditionally attired in a sari. I've even given up collecting 'art' for now my children are my budding artists." She makes it a point to visit all centres on a daily basis and towards evening, when the day's work is done, Akka chats with the children, sharing some of their joys and sorrows.

You can often find the poorest slum children begging near temples, shopping places and traffic light junctions, picking pockets or stealing from shops in crowded markets. "If at all people talk to them, it is either to brush them away or to abuse them," says Bose.

Parikrma provides the children with a complete education; the empowerment in English enables them to compete with children from some of the best schools in India. "I want my children to feel confident facing an Infosys or an IBM interview panel - they should be absolutely on par with more fortunate candidates." The foundation believes that the poor can enhance their lot if they are equipped to compete successfully. Apart from quality education, the centres also strive to give complete care so that the children have a greater chance of reaching their potential. They are provided with both breakfast and lunch at the school and are given a protein drink before they go home.

The foundation has a clearly defined model to follow. It is a 360-degree development program (3DP) that gives the slum children the ability to compete on equal terms, enabling them to break their cycle of poverty. "It takes time, patience, effort and nurturing to develop ability and skills - something that should be ideally done from a really young age. Parikrma takes in children from the age of five and goes all the way till they start earning a living. This end to end (e2e) approach is what guarantees a high success rate," says Kalpana Singh, Parikrma's head of academics. "We have identified and focus on four areas that complete any child's 'Circle of Life' - education, nutrition, healthcare and family care."

Accordingly, each centre provides healthcare, counsellors and support for the children's family. Bose also aims to improve home life with de-addiction programmes, vocational training for older siblings, a women's empowerment plan and a micro loan scheme for small businesses and home improvements.

"Since many of the children have trouble with English, we start with basic, survival words like come, go, sit, stand," says Vijaylakshmi, prinicipal of the Koramangla Centre. "Their mother tongues are Urdu, Kannada, Tamil, Telegu and in some cases, Hindi. Their attention span is low; so we constantly have to develop innovative ways of teaching, to ensure that they stay interested, for it's amply clear that they do appreciate their opportunity."

"When they arrive at school, the children excitedly shout Akka (older sister) or Anna (older brother) which is what they call their teachers. Like all kids, they love playing, and chatting. We do find it a bit demanding and tiring at times, because they are always craving for the attention that so many of them do not get at home," says Singh. "We do the little that we want them to have - we are not teaching them rocket science, but simply giving them a helping hand to achieve their life goals and live successfully - with happiness and joy."

Yet, the changes are amply evident in the skills they develop and the knowledge they learn. "Shakespeare, Newton, Ashoka, Mozart or Chanakya…the Parikrma children know exactly who all of these are; they read Harry Potter, they watch simulations of spiralling nebulae and speeding comets…. If you ask them how human populations behave, they will not only reel out scores of statistics but also demonstrate exponential curves on Excel!" elaborates Bose. "Education makes them curious; they want to know the weight of the earth, what are genes, what is evolution and where the Bermuda Triangle is located." Future plans for Parikrma? "I have planned for a junior college and a leadership institute," she says immediately.

Interestingly, the Parikrma centres have a brief annual vacation for eight days, when volunteers take care of the school - handling everything from administration to teaching. In summer, Bose gives the teaching faculty a month's vacation and enthusiastic people from the corporate world step in as principal or simply to teach Science, Mathematics and different subjects - all because they want to make a difference. It is indeed a change for them, a stress-buster, enabling them to think outside the box.

The Parikrma centres provide free tuition, uniforms, stationery, textbooks and nutritive meals and diet supplements to their 740 students. It takes approximately $360 US per child to sustain the annual operations and expenses. Not surprisingly Parikrma is constantly trying to mobilise funds - meanwhile over 4,000 individuals have signed up to donate half-a-day's salary annually towards building Parikrma's corpus fund.

Since a majority of the children in Parikrma schools are first-generation learners, their learning is intimately connected with supportive home environments. Therefore, family care is integral to ensuring that the students attend school regularly, concentrate in class and feel emotionally secure. Care for the community by trained social workers, who are from the slum communities themselves, has gone a long way in helping build strong relationships with parents. A 95 per cent parental presence at the Parikrma PTA (Parent Teacher Association) meetings is testimony to that.

Bose believes that Parikrma is the first NGO to run as a successful business model. "We measure our performance against standards we have set for ourselves. We believe in branding our company and we believe in having professionals to do that job. We raise funds and scout for donors not just for education and community development, but also for important areas like documentation, public relations, image and the future of the company."