What can be more gratifying than finding a mail in your inbox saying that your article published in Rotary News has resulted in a dilapidated school building in a Karnataka village not only getting renovated with structural repairs, water proofing, a fresh coat of paint, but the children also getting got brand new furniture, school bags and uniforms?
Such a mail, which came in last fortnight from Janet Yegneswaran, past president, RC Bangalore Koramangala, said all this, and more, after thanking me for publishing in October 2024 the article This Rotarian is on a greening spree. (https://rotarynewsonline.org/this-rotarian-is-on-a-greening-spree/). A champion of greening our planet, Janet has been instrumental in planting nearly 100,000 trees in Karnataka, mainly Bengaluru and also Tamil Nadu. These trees have given succour to the victims of natural disasters, creating a ‘food forest’ on barren land, and her work led to the forging of a partnership with the Bosch India Foundation, which put her in charge of a community development centre supported by it in the Anekal region of Karnataka, which operates in some 30 villages. This centre works mainly in areas such as children’s education and women’s empowerment.
During her rounds in Anekal, about 30km from Bengaluru, she came across a village primary school with around 100 children, which was in a dilapidated condition and required renovation, school furniture, etc. The roof was leaking and the toilets were in a terrible condition. While talking about her greening initiatives, the Rotary News article also related her efforts to improve the living conditions of the villagers in the region and published a picture of the school requiring repair and renovation.
When Janet recently visited that school in Chinnayanapalya village in Anekal, she was pleasantly surprised to see the building repaired, and freshly painted. “This school has two dedicated teachers — Bhasker and Rashmi. Both are post graduates and seriously interested in improving the facilities here and introducing new educational tools. They told me that some Rotary club in Pune, after seeing that article and photograph, had come forward to renovate the school. My hope is that once we publish this article in the magazine, it will inspire other Rotary clubs and corporates to contribute towards renovation of critical educational facilities in schools in these villages has been fulfilled,” she wrote.
She recalls that in 2024 when she and Merlin from Bosch India had visited the “Honnakalasapura Govt Primary School in Anekal, to assess the possibility of renovation by the Bosch India Foundation, we had found the building very dingy and damp. Water was leaking and had collected in the corners of the classroom as it was the rainy season. The children had no benches and tables. Bhaskar Master and Teacher Rashmi, both very dedicated teachers, have been working here for years, and Bhasker even goes to some children’s homes on his scooter and brings them to school.”
Well, one good deed begets another; this particular school with such dedicated teachers has seen a bunch of welcome gifts. On one of her visits to the school “Bhasker Master said: ‘Give us a Smart Class — I want to show the world to these children’. His words moved me, he was not asking anything for his own comfort, but for the children. I took it up with RID 3191 governor B R Sridhar, sent him pictures of the school and its children. He immediately took up the request and the Smart Class was commissioned at this school on March 5,” smiles Janet.
near Anekal.
More goodies came pouring in. On her next visit to the school, she carried glasses and plates for the children from RC Koramangala. “They say, when it rains, it pours. Member of the Inner Wheel Club of Koramangala (where too she is a member) came with school bags. They were moved on seeing the children sitting on the ground in damp conditions, so on their next visit, they brought six Nali-Kali tables and 36 chairs, as well as curtains. And in April they are coming back with uniforms for the children!”
Nali-Kali tables are specialised, round or modular furniture used in Karnataka government schools, and are specifically designed to support the Nali-Kali (joyful learning) activity-based teaching system. They facilitate small-group learning, encouraging collaboration, self-paced learning, and social skills instead of traditional lecture-style seating.
That is not all! Pepperl+Fuchs, another corporate which works in industrial sensoring technology, has also stepped in and as its CSR initiative, further improved the school, with “water proofing and painted the building. Now a philanthropist, Eric Dilipkumar, who lives overseas, and is returning to India, wants to donate to this school a Godrej glass book shelf, tables and rotating chairs for the teachers, all costing around ₹70,000. Bhaskar Master says that now that the school has received a complete face-lift, they have started receiving many applications from the villagers for admission of their children,” beams Janet.
Rather than the teacher coaxing the parents to send their children to school, the opposite is happening at this spruced up school!
Other initiatives Janet is taking in this clutch of 30 villages is introducing music sessions for children in another school by taking musicians from Bengaluru for a special session. Blankets have also been distributed to the villagers, and a representative of Bosch India also wants to give grocery kits to the villagers.
One aspect that is troubling her is the status of women, and the disturbing fact that even educated women from rich families are not allowed by their men to work outside the house, “which causes them a lot of frustration. The women of Anekal come from a very conservative background. They get married when they are in high school and most of them are housewives, and are very happy with the training we give them to work at home — making bags, doing ari work, crochet, etc and market their products locally within their own circles. Some of them want to start beauty parlours and are looking for support,” she adds.
Giving such women special skills to do meaningful work which will give a purpose to their lives, along with a decent income, and doing some work in adult literacy are high on Janet’s agenda right now.