With the children in Orissa

No sooner the singing of the national anthem was over, the crowd anxiously awaiting the end of the function, jumped on to the stage and surrounded the youth and shook his hands. The reason being that, the speech given by this youth overtook (sic) the speeches given by all the other VIP speakers at this Tilakavathi function organised by M.L. Udayamurthy at EXNORA Auditorium.

"My education has been paid for by the citizens of this country through their taxes. Forgetting this is as treacherous as forgetting once own mother. Our youth are getting degrees from here and settling in other countries. This has been the case for the last thirty years. But, a big fraction of the people of this country have not even seen schools. This has to be changed. We need to banish illiteracy and lack of education from our country. That requires another freedom struggle. It is that struggle we have initiated. First action, and only after that comes talk." The name of the youth who said this was D.P. Prakash.

He is a volunteer of the organisation 'Asha for Education' and works at IBM in the USA.

Living in America, how is he able to do volunteer services in India?

Not only he, but about a thousand two hundred Indian youths working in different states in the USA are together involved in this organisation started in 1990 [sic].

They are providing education to poor and middle class children in many states in India located in some hundred regions identified as extremely backward. Basic education is provided along with games, nutritional meals, visual media - a touching tale indeed.

All Asha volunteers are educationally highly qualified and holding advanced academic degrees.

Having obtained education with Indian resources, they have gone to America to earn money. But here [India] there is abject poverty! Spurred into action by guilt from the awareness that the root cause of this poverty is lack of basic education, they have been brought together by the internet.

D P Prakash

Prakash, who comes to India regularly to visit the projects in-site, played a key role in the formation of Asha. He is an ex-president of the organisation where he says the tenure to any official posts are [typically] limited to one year.

Fine so far, but how do you get the funding for running these projects, if you ask, he answers "We contribute a part of our salaries. Besides, the art of fund-raising was taught to us by [the fund raising methodologies employed by] the University of California, Los Angeles!"

A Chennai resident, Prakash, considered an academic dud till his ninth class, obtained 94% aggregate in his tenth and twelfth class [board exams].

"If I suddenly succeed in my studies, then my school Vidya Mandir was the reason. Due to the close supervision of the teachers my attitude to life underwent a big change. My plus two [12th class board exam] performance helped me in joining IIT. IIT groomed me into an electronics engineer" says he.

"Asha means hope! It is our firm hope that by 2047, there should be no person who does not have access to basic education. That is why we have transcended caste, religion, language, state and politics and are striving hard [for the cause]. All members of Asha are volunteers. All are between the ages of twenty and thirty five years. The national consciousness aroused during the independence struggle is now kindled in us. Thus, when the centenary of our independence is celebrated, India should be one of the superpowers in the world. In all the project-states, about twenty volunteers are actively involved in service. One of our friends, Sandeep Pandey packed his bags from America and returned to India. You can meet him if you go to Uttar Pradesh. A Punjabi girl named Insha is imparting education to the children of poor migrant labourers in Rajasthan. We are also working closely with other groups that are involved in providing basic education and nutrition. We provide the necessary assistance to people who are share our goal" explained Prakash, who has also been involved in starting educational projects for tribals in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, as well as for street children in the southern states. They are also in the process of setting up Asha Centres shortly at Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi to directly implement basic educational projects.

- Leo
(Photographs: Srihari)