Support an Underprivileged Child in India

This project report is a submission to GlobalGiving’s 2017 Fail Forward Contest, where organizations are asked to share a story of when they tried something new that didn’t go as planned and how they learned from it. Enjoy!

 Failing is a crucial part of learrning and eventually progressing.

The design and architecture of Bal Sambal was a big endeavor in itself - especially with some kids already living there.

At one point, we thought we were ready for a olympic sized swimming pool. We had a plan for it in our initial design of Bal Sambal and we also wanted the kids of start learning how to swim. The construction started and soon we had a huge hole in the ground for the pool.

Then we started hitting the hurdles:

1. Putting tiles all inside the pool was quite expensive as it was a big (olmypic-sized) pool. This wasn't at par with our other monetary priorities at that time.

2. Rain water was starting to get collected in that hole - beggening to become a health problem.

3. The amount of water needed to fill that pool as well as keeping it clean was another big expense which we weren't ready for.

4. The hole was too close to the school and we already felt a need to expand on the school to add an auditorium and reception area.

All in all, we know we had failed in this vision. We filled up the hole and continued the construction of expanding on the school. As of now, we don't have a pool in the campus, but we learned very critical construction lessons. We also learned to research and get an estimate of expenses before commiting to any project.

After that we have taken up atleast 3 more big projects - girls' hostel, guest rooms and a yoga/dance studio. They have all been successful and very well done - thanks to our lessons learnt and us being more careful.

Links:

• Website