 Education of Indian Poor Children
Education is the true enabler and a very sincere gift
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The Most Valuable Gift
This is a true story of a remarkable middle class family, which sympathized with those less fortunate but took real steps to do something about it.
In the early 90’s, Venugopal and Rohini, moved by the plight of uneducated rural poor children, used a part of their small plot to start a school. It was started with 13 children in a make shift structure.
Today there are 123 children. All the children belong to disadvantaged social classes (castes) and their parents are poor, being mainly agricultural labor and daily wage earning construction labor.
For the tiny tots of these poor families, the Venugopal family also started day care and mid-day meals, since the kids’ mothers have to go to work.
With their limitations of space, funding, & teaching capacity, the school offers education only till the 5th grade. Relating the success of their students, who took up schooling elsewhere, after the 5th grade, and even up to engineering, gives tremendous satisfaction to Rohini and her husband.
In the starting days, the school location (about 20 kms from Bangalore), was barren and for miles around there were no modern habitation except basic dwellings of villagers. For the first three years, the area did not even have electricity or municipal water supply. Obviously proper roads also did not exist. The middle class family had only one bread earner. Moreover, they had two small children of their own who had to be brought up.
But none of this deterred the couple from embarking on the noble venture.
In the beginning the school was funded only by the family’s forced savings. As the number of children grew, the family couldn’t go it alone and decided to look for donors and volunteers to help. A trust was formed to channelize the help and to take government recognition for the school, as that was mandated by law. However, for all practical purposes, the family manages the show mainly through individual donor contribution.
The school infrastructure is woefully inadequate. The building is just four walls. During rains, the teaching gets disrupted since all the classes are huddled into one room to avoid the children getting wet. There is not enough funding to build even one more room or a toilet.
Despite all these challenges and despite not knowing where the next set of funding help will come from, there is no wavering of the family’s commitment and satisfaction in bringing up more and more downtrodden kids.
The infective enthusiasm of the children, their desire to learn, (despite less than supportive home environments) and love for the school touches any visitor and gives confidence in the future.
For any more information, Venugopal and Rohini can be contacted at grameenatrust@gmail.com. Their phone numbers are cell – +91 9243087243 and landline +91 (0)80 65703826.
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