Moment of Indian Pride! A Teacher is Teaching the World about Happiness in Giving! The Giving Pledge by the Founder of the Award, inspired by Teaching-Family

Dear Friends and Students

It is a proud moment for the entire Indian teaching community. *A village Govt. Zilla Parishad Primary School teacher (Ranjitsinh Disale, Paritewadi, Solapur, Maharashtra, India) won the US $1 million (whopping 7 crores) Global Teacher Prize 2020!* This is the *First Achievement!*.

He made history by sharing half of this amount (3.5 crores) with the other 9 finalists. This is the *Second Achievement*.

*Another Interesting Aspect in the Award Constitution and Happiness in Giving*. To know more, You must know about * Sunny Varkey*

As you know that this award is given by Varkey Foundation! *Surprisingly Varkey Foundation founder is an Indian Origin Philanthropist.*

*Sunny Varkey is a Founder of the Global Teacher Prize!* His parents were both teachers (source: hindustantimes). He is born in Ranni, Kerala, in 1957. His family migrated to Dubai in 1959 from Kerala. They opened a school in Dubai for Indian ex-pats. However, Sunny and his sister studied in India till 1970 and later moved to Dubai. He faced hardship while he was studying in India.

Sunny Varkey is the founder and Chairman of global advisory and educational management firm *GEMS Education*, which is the largest operator of private kindergarten-to-grade-12 schools in the world, with a network of 52 schools in 4 countries. Today Sunny is a billionaire but The Giving Pledge is in-built in his heart!

*Is it not a pride moment for all of us as the Award Donor and Award Winner are running a common thread- Happiness in Giving!!*

Ranjitsinh Disale, was recognized for his efforts for promoting girls' education and triggering a *Quick-Response (QR) Coded Textbook Revolution in India* (en.unesco.org).

*Proposal to Teachers:*

Ranjitsinh could do this great effort while teaching in a remote village. He created the QR revolution for NCERT books!

*If one Ranjitsinh can make the difference, we have 1 crore teachers across India*. 87 lakh teachers are teaching in schools! Our teacher population is equivalent to Sweden or UAE or Hungary or Austria type of country’s population. What kind of wonders we can make if every teacher acts like Ranjitsinh!!

Ek Baar Sochiye!

Teachers, *Applications and Nominations for the 2021 Prize will open online in January 2021.* Please apply at https://www.globalteacherprize.org/

Your well-wisher

Ravi Saripalle