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Today, our very own Satish Tripathi shared with us a bit of his background and his special project, Arunodaya. Arunodaya means sunrise or early dawn in Sanskrit. Satish started this program in 2022 and focuses to support children with blindness in remote areas of India and protecting their right to education. It is administered through Satish's foundation, Ek Kadam Aur. From Satish's presentation and brochure, we learned India is home to 320,000 blind children. So many of them live in those remote areas and in extreme poverty. The majority of them in the remotest parts of the country do not go to school. Satish's program brings the education to the children in the home beginning at the age of 5 through 14 years old. Volunteers help educate and navigate them into regular school and build relationships with sighted children. They help coordinate with the schools in regards to homework and skills. Much of this is accomplished through smart phones. These phones have special software for the blind uploaded into them. The first phase is in the child's home 2 hours per day, 6 days per week. In rare cases such in Rajasthan State, they teach 4 hours per day, 3 days per week as there are no educated people in some villages and they must send a teacher from 50 to 100 miles away (sometimes even more distance to reach to a child). Phase 2 is when the child in integrated into a school and is aided in the home for another 6 - 9 months, noting each child is different with different needs. They focus on communication, leadership, empowerment and inclusion. I will be sharing some more information through email, but you can also checkout the website: www.ekkadamaur.org. And here is link to the quarterly report: quarterlyreport. It was a wonderful presentation! If anyone else has ideas, has some time on their hands, or has a friend they think would love to know more about Rotary, please respond to this email. Don't be shy - come on back - we'd love to see you! |
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