For more than half a century, New Era High School has set the pace for service
PANCHGANI, Maharashtra, India - In some respects, the New Era High School might be considered as the grandfather of modern Bahá'í development efforts.
Founded at the end of World War II in August 1945, the School was one of the first education projects started by Bahá'ís outside of Iran. Its first class consisted of some 16 students, aged four to eight, and they gathered in a small rented house in this scenic and temperate hill station town.
In the 53 years since, the School has grown and flourished, becoming a highly respected private academy, drawing students from all over the world. It currently offers a complete program of study for grade levels from kindergarten through high school, and has an enrollment of nearly 1,000.
The School has long given a high priority to moral education and the promotion of values for world citizenship, and its students have regularly scored high marks on government exams and other academic tests.
Of equal significance, the School has been a proving ground for early Bahá'í efforts at promoting social and economic development in rural areas.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the School gradually began to establish a series of outreach programs aimed at assisting poor and underdeveloped villages in the region. The program was started as a service project for students, operating under the direction of Dr. Ray Johnson, who was the school's principal from 1971 to 1983.
These initial efforts began in 1973, and they involved sending eighth, ninth and tenth grade students down the mountainside into the village of Chicklee in the Krishna River Valley one day a month to assist in such projects as showing villagers how to rid themselves of scabies or assisting in the construction of a new water storage tank.
"We started these things out of a strong conviction that everybody has within them a need to serve," said Jane Grover, who was a vice principal at New Era from 1971 to 1977 and one of the initiators of this program. "And young people, especially, can develop that capacity by doing service."
These efforts gradually became more formalized. Grant money was accepted, a van was purchased, and staff members became engaged full time in rural development. Projects to promote health, literacy and better animal husbandry were undertaken.
By 1975, the New Era Rural Development Program was established and then, in 1980, a secondary project, the Institute for Rural Technology, was founded. In 1983, these two programs were combined as the New Era Centre for Rural Education and Development. And, finally, in 1987, the New Era Development Institute was founded and its administration was separated entirely from the administration of the New Era High School.
The School is today formally out of the rural development business, ceding that work to NEDI, its sister institution. But it continues to train its students to be service-oriented. Students are required to perform service in and around the campus, as well as to undertake various short-term community service projects.
"Although we are a very good academic school, our primary aim is to build a citizenry that is well developed in terms of moral values and an attitude of service," said Dr. Vasudevan Nair, the principal.
