Professor Indrajit Ray, Chair in Economic Theory at Birmingham Business School’s Department of Economics, is Chairman of ‘Vidyapith’, a charity based in India. Meaning Centre for Education, the charity is an international foundation for the advancement of education in relation to the eradication of poverty in India and is run by a number of Indian ex-pats in the UK and America.
Originally from Calcutta, India, Indrajit attended a Missionary boarding school when he was 8 years old, a school which was situated about 200 miles outside of the city. Learning in such a strict and religious background gave him a very different experience from many other children his age in India for whom education was not as readily available.
Professor Ray distributes books and a classroom before and after help from Vidyapith.
It was this exposure to education early on which has inspired Professor Ray to become involved in Vidyapith. Discussing the charity, Professor Ray said:
India is a developing country; it has progressed massively in many ways yet still has areas of extreme poverty. We believe that the root cause is primary education; ex-pats like me dream about India changing but this won’t happen unless the education system changes.
We raise money to make changes to the basic education structure; so far, we have worked in 75 different schools and have made differences to the infrastructure such as new chairs, tables, books, electricity or a school’s foundations.
We hope that the changes we make now will one day make a difference to the children of India, so that they too have access to an education similar to my own.”
If you would like to learn more about Vidyapith or discover way to get involved, you can contact Indrajit; i.ray@bham.ac.uk.
Alternatively, you can visit any of the following websites for further information:
Vidyapith
Vidyapith on Facebook
Professor Ray's personal website
Professor Ray's University of Birmingham profile page