::Jayanagara Sthree Samaja Trust - VIDYA VIKAS KENDRA::

The year 1994 won the special significance to the trust. As part of the literacy campaign, the trust felt the need to start a school for the benefit for the rural children in a remote village, Gerupalya, 22 kilometers away from South Bangalore. A survey was undertaken for this purpose to assess the literacy situation. Gerupalya won preferably the choice of the Trust, as it lacked even minimum educational needs and the children had to commune to neighbouring villages for the purpose of education.The trust named the school as "Vidya Vikas Kendra". Thus V.V.Kendra, the Brainchild of the trust came into being in the year 1994. The trust felt the urgency of imparting education to rural children and making them self-reliant was a much needed task, as this under privileged section of the society was not so fortunate as their city counter-parts.

The school now caters to the educational needs of the children in both Gerupalya and surrounding villages. Over the year the school has grown in strength and is imparting quality education free of cost to nearly 600 children ranging from nursery to matriculation. It is recognised by the Government of Karnataka and is affiliated to Secondary Board of Education, Education Department, Karnataka. During 2004-2005 the school has been upgraded into a high school. It has been making steady progress both in curriculum and extra curricular activities.

The school is totally unaided. The classes were originally conducted in a rented asbestos roofed building. Thanks to donors, Now it owns its own new building.

Devoid of any government grants the school is mainly sustained by a non-government agencies and public support. Donations by the well wishers and protagonists of education are resources for the entire management. In view of the magnitude and the growing strength of the school, resources are to be augmented further.

Apart from the free tuition provided, the children are also provided with free textbooks, note books and free uniforms. Once a year a free medical check up by qualified doctors is arranged for the children of the school.

It has been our earnest desire to serve this vulnerable section of the society by providing them with optimum facilities through public support.

We intend to generate a corpus fund,based on donations from well-wishers, philanthropists. The interest earned there on will be utilised to manage | run the school | meeting salaries | cost of books | furniture equipments | lab facilities | uniforms | maintenance | property tax etc. At this juncture we would like to emphasize upon this fact. Since its inception, the entire burden of running and managing the school has fallen on the trust. We have no resources to fall back upon other than the contributions from the generous philanthropists and few NGO's like Rotary, Lions club, Gokul Das exports, Clumax, Small step Foundation and many charitable Trusts But these contributions are not on a regular basis. We have to identify new sources of avenues every year with the commencement of the academic year.

Our expenses towards the schools include the following items

1) Salary of the staff ; we have a full fledged staff with Principal, Assistant Head Mistress, P.T Teacher and operational staff, totally numbering 22.
2) Administrative expenses that include stationary and other expenses.
3) Free uniforms for 600 children.
4) Supply of Notebooks, Textbooks and other essentials to children.
5) Maintenance and repairs of furniture items at the beginning of the academic year.

In view of the growing strength of the school, the administrative and salary expenses of the schools are mounting up. To find new avenues to cope up with the mounting expenses has been extremely difficult at times, we do not receive any grants-in-aid from the secondary board of education.

We are doing our best to bring these rural children into the mainstream of life by providing them with adequate facilities and quality education.

Besides general curriculum, we are coaching them in basic computers also. We have a special computer room meant for this purpose. A trained teacher imparts the basic education in computer programming for our children.

In the Board examination(S.S.L.C) conducted by the Secondary board education, our children have come out with flying colours.

Free coaching classes for students appearing for the S.S.L.C examination will be conducted every year for three months, Special coaching will not only be given to our students but to the children from the neighbouring schools also, This has naturally resulted in the boosting of the percentage of passes in the Board examination. In view of the rural background of the parents who are illiterate, our children are not very much conversant in English. Short term English speaking course is on our agenda. We intend to start Vocational courses in the village to enable our children to stand on their own legs after matriculation, if they are not very keen to pursue further studies.

Our school is well equipped with very good laboratory facilities. Thanks to the donation by the Inner Wheel Club of Shanthi Nagar,Bangalore.

Over the years, we have noticed change in the attitude of the villagers towards education. They are sending their children voluntarily to study in the school, even though we still do door to door campaign at the commencement of the academic year. We are doing our best to create the awareness about the importance of girl child's education, through community involvement. It is also heartening to note that there are no drop-outs in our school.

The new school building was inaugurated in June 2004. However we are yet to acquire some land in the existing school premises for play-ground facility.

The cost incurred by the trust to meet the entire educational expenses of one child for the whole year is Rs:10,000/- Hence we have launched "Sponsorship Scheme" whereas the sponsor's would have to adopt a child by contributing the above said amount. Donations are accepted in any form, can be either in cash or cheque drawn in favour of Jayanagara Sthree Samaja Trust. All donations are exempt from Income tax under the section 80G of Income tax act.

Our need-based projects have reached out effectively atleast to a small section of women and children. What little success we have achieved in this area definitely goes to you all, without whose moral and financial supports our dream would not have aterialised.

We have miles to go ahead in the years to come. We seek the same support, good wishes, not to mention the financial support from you all in future also. Every time when we were in a crisis, providence in the form of an unknown helping hand has come to our aid. We have nothing to offer other than our sheer determination and will to server society in some way or the other. Children's academic progress is our reward. The Trust is also exploring the possibility of further strengthening the existing infrastructure of the school to provide still better facilities to the children. We appeal to the Philanthropic public to come forward and share our concern.