Good to read of someone who realised the importance of reaching the society throgh change of heart than by violence. If his short story could be sent , it would be given in the forum on Sarvodaya here in Bombay.
scjaini
On Sun, 01 Jun 2008 Prime Point Srinivasan wrote :
>*From Moderator*
>
>Dear friends
>
>On the last Gandhi Jayanthi day ( 2nd Oct 2007), we had featured Mr
>Periaswamy, an extremist turned social worker as a podcast titled "Violence
>to Non violence" in the follwoing link
>http://www.podunive
>
>Right from his childhood, Periaswamy had urge in him to help the downtrodden
>and to remove social evils. Unfortunatley, during his student days, he was
>misled and entered into naxalite and extremist movement. He spent his early
>days as an extremist and was sentenced to death. He was in the prison for
>more than 5 years.
>
>During this prison days, after getting the death sentence, he was going
>through various books and realised that violence and extremism were not
>solution for uplifting the downtrodden. Fortunately for him, he was
>exonerated by the High Court and released from the prison. Though for some
>time, he was in the political movement to serve the poor people, he realised
>that politics was also not conducive in his mission.
>
>Three years back, he wanted to provide education support to the dalit
>children in the evening in the near villages. Some of the local teachers
>gave him support. Due to his leadership in those area, he was able to
>convince the parents to send their children to the evening coaching centre.
>He started such coaching centres in a few villages experimentally. They used
>to sit in public places or under the street light and conduct classes.
>There was a good response from the parents and children. The support was
>provided free of cost.
>
>Periaswamy discussed his project with Mr Sudarshan, CEO of Zylog Systems
>Ltd, (an IT Company). Sudarshan is a NRI. He also joined the trust as one
>of the trustees and started providing financial support to start few more
>such centres. (now Sudarshan has joined our group and he has a flair for
>helping downtrodden children)
>
>Presently, Nandanar Trust is running 60 such evening coaching centres in 60
>villages from 6.30 PM to 9 PM every day. One teacher is handling the
>centre. Around 50 to 60 dalit children attend every coaching centres.
>They supplement what the regular schools teach. They handle from 1st
>standard to 10th standard. In the coaching centre, they practise Yoga,
>Meditation, etc. More than 3000 downtrodden children are getting the
>benefit from these 60 centres. Besides, the trust is also running tailoring
>classes for the women, free of cost. This has helped the dalit women to
>learn tailoring and then use this skills for earning money.
>
>Trust engages 60 teachers for all their centres and 6 supervisors to
>coordinate between the centres. Now, the activity has completed two years
>successfully and enters third year.
>
>Last Sunday, they had organised a training programme at Ulundurpet
>(Tamilnadu) at Sri Sarada Ashram. 45 teachers and all the supervisors
>participated in the three day training camp. The faculty members of B.Ed
>College run by Sarada Ashram helped them to conduct workshop.
>
>Since Nandanar Trust is also one of the partner organisations of our India
>Vision Group, I personally went to the training camp, along with Mr
>Sudarshan. We had an interaction with the teachers.
>
>They told us that all the children have started doing yoga and meditation
>regularly. Not only that, they also have influenced their parents (who are
>mostly illeterates) positively. The teachers teach them values and ethics
>in the evening classes. These children every day after getting up from the
>bed, fall at the feet of their parents and take blessings (a new experience
>for the parents). More than anything, these children are engaged in good
>activity and they do not watch the trash TV programmes in this peak hour.
>The teachers say that this has helped the children to pick up studies and
>earn good marks.
>
>In some of the villages, normally, all the children, writing 10th std.
>board exam used to fail. Now, in this two years, this is reversed. More
>than 90% of the children pass the board examination and even get school
>ranks.
>
>Periaswamy says that to run one such coaching centre to help around 50 to 60
>children cost them only Rs.1000/- per month towards the salary for the
>teachers and supervisors. Now they do not have any website or email. They
>plan to start a website soon and to post their accounts through the website
>and to solicit the support from Corporates / individuals.
>
>It is a great thing that 1000/- rupees /month can change the life of around
>40 to 60 dalit children in a village. If anybody interested to get
>associated, you can send a mail to me. I will connect with them.
>
>Please see the photo stream of training programme in the following link
>http://tinyurl.
>
>When I left the training camp, Periaswamy told me, " Sir... What I wanted to
>achieve through violence and extremism in those days, now i am achieving
>silenly with the support of all people and creating happy enviornment"
>
>K. Srinivasan
>Moderator
>94440 50273
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