Newsletter May 2009

Ekal International Conference

Ekal International Conference is going to be held in Delhi on 30^th, 31^st Oct & 1^st Nov, 2009. Around 10 thousand people from Bharat and abroad are expected to attend the conference. Preparations have begun. All are invited.

 

Indore Creates History Once Again

• 24th Chapter of FTS in Indore
• 250 couples joined it as regular members
• The Chapter adopted 540 Ekal Villages in two areas of MP
• Collection of Rs. 23.5 Lac (150 villages) was done on the spot
• More than five hundred dignitaries of Indore attended the function
• The press and electronic media covered the event

The 24^th Chapter of FTS was inaugurated in Indore on 11^th April 2009 with elegance and patriotic ferver in ‘Sayajee Mahal’ of Sayajee Hotel.

The President Sri S.K. Chowdhary welcomed everybody and expressed his happiness and gratitude for having realized his long cherished dream of making Indore as a strong Chapter of FTS. Indore is the industrial capital of Madhya Bharat. Mr. Chowdhary is an eminent industrialist and highly respected person in the city. Ekal Sangathan Prabhari reminded the extinguished gathering in the meeting hall about the historical event of ‘Karyakarta Kumbh’ held in Indore four years ago in 2005. The love and warm welcome given by Indorians had infused so much energy and enthusiasm in 4000 fulltime grassroot Volunteers (who had gathered from all over the country) that it resulted in tremendous all-round growth of Ekal Movement, he said. The Ekal Movement has great hopes from the Indore Chapter.

Sri R.L. Kabra, the National President spoke deligently about the greater responsibilities of the industrialists and corporate of India towards the social/national cause spearheaded by Ekal. He appealed one and all to join this movement in mass.

Sri Sajjan Bhajanka, the working President of FTS, declared the Chapter open by lighting the lamp. He emphasized over the fact that we could best contribute to a genuine cause like ‘Ekal’ by giving quality time and resources at the prime of our career. He proved the point by quoting his own example how he got over the myth “wait till right time comes for social services after retirement”. Rather “Every time is right time for Service” he said. The most talented Secretary of the Chapter, Sri Om Dhoot gave a vote of thanks and made a mark as the strongest pillar of the chapter.

An impressive number of delegates from Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai, Bhopal, Ranchi, Khandwa, Ratlam, Khargon came to attend the function. A new film ‘Dastak’ on Ekal work in J&K was shown which made a deep impression on the audience.

Two young industrialists Sri Rajeev and Abhishek Modi immediately donated Rs. 21 Lac and Smt. Pushpa Mittal well known social personality gave Rs. 2.51 Lac to the Indore Chapter on this occasion. By the grace of Mr. Chowdhary’s determination and dedication, 250 couples became members of FTS Indore, which has adopted two areas of Ratlam and Khargon (540 Ekal Villages).

A tribal folk dance was presented in the end. The most remarkable was the compeering, done by Sri Rahul Dhoot, brilliantly. Delicious dinner was served. The inauguration of Indore Chapter will be remembered for long time to come.

 

Karnataka Kshetra Samanvaya Sangam 2009 Held

Concidering the success of “Akhil Bhartiya Nagar Mahila Sangathan Varga” held on7^th & 8^th June 2008 at Belgaum, once again Belgaum was chosen to organize state level Programme “Karnataka Kshetra Samanvaya Varg – 2009 which was very happily accepted by SVO/ Ekal Abhiyan Belgaum to be the host. This was the first time that such state level programme was organized at Belgaum, on 21^st & 22^nd February 2009.

The Samanvaya Sangam was held at Gujarath Bhavan – situated at L. B. Shastri Nagar – centrally located in the city ofBelgaum, spacious – free from traffic & nuisance comfortably accommodating all our Karyakartas who arrived from all direction viz., Khanapur, Gundalpet, Mysore, Bellary – Gubarga & Bidar.

Karnataka Kshetra Samanvaya Sangam – 2009 was inaugurated on Saturday the 21^st February at the auspicious hands of Ekal Sangathan Prabhari at Scheduled time 11.00 a.m. the announcement also was made but again the greatness ofEkal Sangathan Prabhari, the audience experienced, who himself took over the microphone & advised the audience that since this Samanvaya Sangam belongs to all the Karyakartas the same should be inaugurated by one of them. Miss. Komal Chikhalkar – acharya from Bandekarwada was called upon the dais & she was given the appropriate honour to lit up the lamp & inaugurated the Samanvaya Sangam. On this auspicious occasion, Sri Jagmohanji Maheshwari – President FTS Bangalore, Smt. Sushilaji Rathi – President Karnataka Prant Mahila Samiti – Sri Sureshji Hundre - President Ekal Abhiyan Karnataka, Smt. Swatiji Ketkar – President Mahila Samiti Belgaum, graced the dais.

Omkar & Saraswati Vandana was performed in the beginning. Sri Sureshji Hundre welcomed the guests of honour & the Anchal Samiti members & the Karyakartas from all the anchals. Sri Sureshji expressed his happiness to have received the honour of organizing the Samanvaya Sangam in a very small city like Belgaum & assured to come to the expectations. While welcoming he emphasized on the word “Sangam” which means sacred meeting, & joining each other, doubling the power, to unite and exchange of thoughts to achieve our ultimate goal. “Rashtra Nirman”. Organizing of such Samanvaya Sangam means to become more responsible & stick up to Ekal system honestly. Further Sureshji appealed to the Karyakartas involve in Ekal to sacrifice for the national work with TANA-MANA & DHANA & apply whole heartedly.

At the outset Ekal Sangathan Prabhari advised all the SVO & Anchal Samiti members to respect the full time karyakartas & Acharyas, to treat them with homely love and affections. Then only they can apply themselves to the full fledged work of Ekal Abhiyan. They are the means and reasons of this total movement. We all were advised to take at least one Karykarta to our works with their family and also visit once to their family members along with ours then only the real relations could be established.

Further Ekal Sangathan Prabhari elaborated the assignment of Samanvaya Samiti by following five important points 
1.  Samanvaya Vyavastha (Middle Management)
2.  Motivation (Prerana)
3.  Ownership (Swavalamban)
4.  Urban Organisation (Nagar Sanghatan)
5.  Value Addition (“Gunavatta Vruddhi)

 

One Teacher School: Movement to Eradicate Illiteracy from Rural India

Though India has come a long way from independence but still the state of illiteracy in rural India is shocking. Especially tribal belt has literacy rate of about 20% while all India figure is 65%. One Teacher School movement has taken the task of eradicating illiteracy from the face of rural India by 2013 by establishing 100,000 one teacher schools in remote villages of India.

The founder member of this movement Ekal Sangathan Prabhari has talked in detail as how this movement is going to achieve this goal. He was accompanied by the biggest donor of this movement, Sri Braham Ratan Aggarwal from Orlando, USA. Vice President of Ekal Vidyalaya foundation of USA, Sri Ram Nehra from Rhodes Island (USA) and the global -Coordinator Smt. Sangeeta Gupta from Delhi, India. While talking to Gujrat Samachar, Mr Gupta introduced the local co-ordinator in London as Sri Sushil Gupta and Virji Shingadia expressed full confidence that London team would be successful to gather all out support from Indian community of UK. The movement has reached more than 27000 villages to date and our aim is to reach 35000 next year.

Mr Gupta explained that this movement is imparting functional education to the children and as well as their parents for the integrated development of the village. It comprises four dimensions i.e. elementary education to the children after standard 3 through daily schools which runs for three hours at the convenience of availability of the children. For parents the weekly assembly is organised to impart education of healthcare, economic development and self empowerment. The aim is to make child to stand on his or her feet and the whole family gets empowered through education. Though the government of India is trying its level best effort to open formal primary school in the vicinity of each and every village, but because of the day long timing of these formal schools the children do not have opportunity of attending the schools as they have to assist their parents for livelihood or agricultural chores. One teacher school movement adopts non formal and joyful method of education to attract these children to attend the three hour school. After getting education up to standard 3 from Ekal Vidyalaya (one teacher school) also known as Saraswati Vidyalaya Foundation in UK , the children often get admitted in class four in nearby government schools. The Ekal Vidyalaya not only give education but also invoke the urge to go for higher education.

In economic development education the villagers are trained for extra income generation through organic farming. They produce vermin compost (organic manure) from cow dung and organic pesticides from cow urine, along with herbal and fruit bearing plantation. Villages are encouraged for horticultural and rain water harvesting. The movement also emphasises for the awareness about government welfare schemes, constitutional rights and functions of local government departments, so that the villagers must be empowered with self confidence. As a future plan this movement is to establish formal schools where students will get education from class IV to VIII and at same time skill training of cow base agriculture and agrobase industry. This is the concept of “earn while you learn” through which the local youth must be able to generate efficient income so that they must not be pressure and leave their villages for seeking employment in big cities.

Mr Gupta further explained that this movement is for connecting every overseas Indian with India. By donating £250 pounds one family can adopt one village for one year for total development through education. We seek a moral commitment of five years support because after that school becomes self sufficient i.e. local community start taking control from then on. In UK 3R foundation has been established to help this movement in India and Nepal. The foundation is presently supporting 800 such schools in Nepal and very soon they want to raise this figure up to 1500 schools. Now this foundation is all set to support another 2000 schools in India. Sri Nath Puri, a renowned industrialist based in Nottingham is leading this movement in UK as Chairman and Sri Hasmukh Shah of Bradford as national co-ordinator. For the status of Ekal Vidyalaya (EV) in India one can visit our website www.ekal.org.

 

Smt. Sangita Gupta, Ekal Global Coordinator, Visits Ekal Schools in Mount Abu with her Family

I along with my family, a total of 7 members, went to Mount Abu on a holiday. We had to board a train at Abu road. I got to know that our Ekal School runs at the foothills of the Mount Abu at Sirohi District, Swaaroopganj cluster, mostly a Tribal belt. I thought of giving a surprise visit. I called up Ratanji our full time karyakarta of that region and told him about our plan. We visited a total of 5 schools. Only our school in village Isra had light, a deep tube well which dries up in summer and a Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan school. All the other 4 schools did not have light or tube well. All the schools are 9 months old and were running properly. All the 4 schools children visit only Ekal schools. All day long the children graze their cattle and at 5 in the evening come to Ekal School.  

To visit Tekriya Fali school, we had to walk around 1-1/2 kms and for Taidra Fali we had to walk 1 km through fields There are no roads. The students were bright and answered our questions well. They could read numbers in English also. We asked them questions about hygiene also e.g. -do they cut their nails regularly, have they bathed today etc. and the results were positive. The villagers are really very poor. No shops are nearby for buying their essential commodities. We thought how they lived only on the produce of their land. This is really the scene of MODERN INDIA. We really thanked Ekal Movement for giving them basic education, health care education and teaching about their rights and duties.

 

Famous Industrialists and Businessmen Join Ekal Vanyatra

A special three day Van Yatra was organized to visit Ekal Vidyalayas running in Chamba and Palampur Anchals from 10/04/09 to 12/4/09 in which 14 persons from Delhi based famous industrialists and businessmen families participated.

On 10^th of April, 2009, the party reached Nuspur Sanch. They visited some religious places and conducted a meeting with the Anchal Karyakartas in the evening.

On 11^th of April, 09, they visited Ekal Schools at Kotla Sanch. They appreciated the village development activities in the village. Chief Guest Sri Sanjeev Goel addressed a meeting of the villagers and karyakartas and apprised them of the Ekal International Conference Scheduled to take place in New Delhi in Oct/Nov.,2009.

On 12^th April the team visited Ekal Schools being run at Nagrota Sanch of Palampur Anchal. The students of the School welcomed the guests by chanting Bal Geet and regional poems. Everyone was overwhelmed by the self- confidence shown by the Children. The team visited the Schools in Jadrangal, Garladei, Pathiar, Malla, Kabadi, Hatwas villages under the Anchal. 

 

Ekal updates - Ekal Vidyalaya

Current: Number of Ekal Schools: 26,429 Number of Children: 753,810