35-year-old, Lucknow-based, Dr Sandeep Pandey belongs to this rare
category. An IITian with a doctorate from the University of Berkeley
in California, Dr Pandey not only returned to India but plunged
head-on into the development of a non-profit organisation devoted to
promoting educational centres for underprivileged children in India.
During his early years, the urge to contribute to the society prompted Dr Pandey to actively join the students movement at the Benaras Hindu University, in Uttar Pradesh, as a student leader. His attempt to initiate changes as a student leader did not meet with much success. Years later, in California, Dr Pandey was acquainted with two other like-minded Indian students who shared his vision. In 1991, Dr Sandeep Pandey, Dr. VJP Srivastavoy and Dr. Deepak Gupta teamed with 30-40 other students in California to form Asha or `hope'. The basic outlook of Asha is based on the Gandhian philosophy.
At the time, Dr Pandey was a teaching assistant for a Hindi class at
the Berkeley University. This helped him to partially support the cost
of his education and also provided him with an opportunity to interact
with many Indian students and share his vision for `Asha' with them.
Asha collected about US $ 10,000 in the first year, this was mainly
from students and the single largest donation was US $200. In the
same year, Asha organised a cultural programme called `Images of
India,' which raised US $ 2,500 and thus a beginning was made. Dr
Pandey and his team of volunteers attended almost all the local Indian
concerts and music programmes around Berekely and distributed
pamphlets containing information about Asha. Donations flowed in
through this simple word-of-mouth publicity campaign. Asha, also
posted minutes of its meetings on an Indian News Group
`soc.culture.india' on the 'Net. These minutes received a spontaneous
response from the newsgroup readers and requests to open more Asha
Chapters or Centres poured in.
After completing his PHD, Dr Sandeep Pandey returned to India in 1992 and took on a teaching job at IIT, Kanpur. However, he quit this job after three semesters and got involved full-time in various social service activities for underprivileged children. Did leaving behind a career not worry him? "There are people who need to work mainly to sustain themselves, I am happy to do the work that gives me maximum satisfaction. I also believe in the Gandhian thinking that once the path is chalked out the means will follow," says Dr Pandey in his soft and distinctly polite Lucknowi Hindi.
It took Dr Pandey and Asha about six years to get all the necessary permission and papers to register Asha in India.
Dr Pandey was active mainly in Ballia, in Uttar Pradesh, the
constituency of the former Prime Minister Mr Chandra Shekar. His
activities here included the setting up of 3-4 schools in the
semi-rural town of Reoti and its surrounding villages. Dr Pandey was
also actively involved in running of some of these schools.
Dr Pandey and his team of volunteers are currently developing an alternative educational curriculum and textbooks for schools starting from kindergarden level. This syllabus emphasises on human values for a just social order (samajikta) and self reliance for livelihood (svavalamban). Coursework includes basic hygiene and philosophy. In the end, these children will have both the skills to work in industry and the ethics to be good citizens.
On an experimental basis, the students upto first standard at the Reoti school are now being taught according to the syllabus developed by Asha.
Dr Pandey is also in the process of developing an Asha Ashram at Hardoi, 60-kms North-West of Lucknow, in Uttar Pradesh to serve as a co-ordination centre for the various activities of different Asha Chapters in India.
Dr Sandeep Pandey on Asha
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What does Asha aim to achieve?