The aim of the 2014 and 2015 sponsorship was to give a selected teacher from an interior rural school in India, the opportunity to spend a month in an Australian school to observe and film teaching methodologies.
Parameswar Giri came from the Tinitia Upgraded Upper Primary School in Karanjia, Mayurbhanj District from the state Orissa in India. Parameswar holds an MA and BEd, and is also a fully qualified acupuncture doctor - having completed the full six-year Chinese course. He's also a qualified ayurvedic doctor (India), and a trained orthopaedic technician (Germany). He and his wife, who is also a qualified acupuncture doctor and midwife, run a low-cost clinic for the local village people in their area.
Parameswar joined a group of four teachers from the Sunshine School in Vientiane, Laos at the River School in Maleny, Queensland. The Children's Health and Education Fund supplied him with a camera to record the classrooms and teaching practices and a digital projector to show the videos he filmed to other teachers and the stocks of educational documentaries and other materials to the children.
Since returning to India, Parameswar now gives training to teachers in his school and the district.