Author: Ravi Raghavan
Publication: Organiser
Date: October 23, 2005
URL: http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=101&page=28
"IF a poor child cannot come to school,
the school must go to him," said the great Hindu saint, Swami Vivekananda.
Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation (EVF)-"The People's Movement"-is based
on none other than Vivekananda's principles.
On September 28, 2005, the Ekal Houston chapter
organised its annual meeting with visiting guests from India and Florida.
The guests were Shyamji Gupta, Swami Sachidananda and Sangeeta Gupta from
India and Braham Aggarwal from Florida. During the meeting, the enthusiasm
and optimism was palpable amongst the 60 attendees that included international
coordinators, regional advisors and key area volunteers. After a vegetarian
dinner, the meeting began with Meera Kapur, the Vice President of EVF's southwest
USA region and Ramesh Shah, the National Secretary of EVF, USA, announcing
the highlights of the recent national EVF meeting held at San Jose, California.
Shri Shah reminisced that at this national
meeting attended by over 80 attendees, the important discussion was on sharing
experiences of volunteers who had visited Ekal schools. Another key development
was to create more Ekal regions in the USA to promote the cause and create
more awareness. The southwest region, for instance, will be split into three
regions: Dallas-Oklahoma, Louisiana and South Texas; with the possibility
that more regions may be created for better donor relationship.
Shyamji Gupta, Founding Member and National
Coordinator of EVF-India, enthralled the Houston audience with a spell-binding
presentation on how the Ekal Vidyalaya movement aims to systematically eradicate
illiteracy from rural and tribal India by 2011. He described how Ekal is a
movement of over 14,000 trained teachers, 2,500 voluntary workers, 20 field
organisations (in 20 Indian States), and six support agencies. With this tremendous
human force, the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation has created a growing network of
'Ekal Vidyalayas' (meaning 'one-teacher schools') that is currently educating
and empowering over 450,000 children in tribal and rural India. Shyamji underlined
that Indians from varied faiths, including Christians and Muslims, were as
much part of Ekal movement now as anybody else.
Swami Sachidananda, the Ekal Global Secretary,
described the establishment of EVFs in Europe, Australia and Hong Kong with
ongoing efforts to harness the support of the NRI community in South Africa,
Singapore and Thailand in serving their motherland. Two special international
highlights were the establishment of over 800 Ekal schools in Nepal's remote
villages and the prospects of starting Ekal schools in Sri Lanka in the near
future.
He recounted the experiences of Siddhartha
Agarwal, a senior studying Economics at Harvard University, who spent the
summer working with Ekal in India to learn more about development work in
Indian villages as well as to do a research project on education. Another
speaker was Sangeeta Gupta, a homemaker and dedicated Ekal worker from India.
Her daughter Khushboo is a graduate from the UK and is starting a year-long
voluntary mission serving with EVF-India. Smt Gupta invited the audience to
a "van yatra" (visit to a tribal area) to witness for themselves
how the Ekal Vidyalaya movement is transforming India.
Braham Aggarwal, prominent businessman from
Orlando who recently donated $365,000 for 1000 Ekal schools and pledged to
donate for five years to the Ekal cause, described succinctly that Ekal's
selfless service is synonymous with the divinity that Hindus see in our fellow
beings. Praising the dedication of the Ekal volunteers, Shri Aggarwal struck
a receptive chord with the audience by saying that he saw God in the tireless
work of Shyamji Gupta and his brainchild-Ekal Vidyalaya.
Over a century ago, Vivekananda's profound
words of wisdom were uttered, underlining the need for Indians to spread the
light of education in every nook and corner of India. Now the Swami's clarion
call can be witnessed in action. The Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation has turned
into a "people's movement" striving to bring value-based primary
education, healthcare, women's empowerment and grassroots development to the
nearly 100,000 remote tribal villages of India. This dynamic vision for India
has gained the support of the Indian masses as well as the NRIs living in
the USA.
