Many starfish washed up on sea shore. A saintly man started picking them up and throwing them back into the ocean. Someone saw what he was doing and told him that it was pointless, that there were too many to save, that it wouldn’t make a difference. Throwing another starfish into the sea, the saintly man responded, “It makes a difference to this one”

This reflects truly in this competitive world we live in. Everyone talks about doing something to help the needy and making reservations (mostly cast based rather then being income or merit based) in schools to job now. That’s what our politicians have made a habit to grab vote bank and all it does is help few people exploit this and hardly reaches the people that deserve the real help.

Though our government provides free basic education; there is very little for people who want to continue higher education. What this does is that most of these people end up joining jobs early in their life and end up supporting family and do not reach their true potential. Some may continue their education through distance education or correspondence but it becomes increasingly difficult due to financial burden. I can relate to this since, I went through this and coming to Bangalore; I had to make a choice of continuing my education or help my family by working. I did many jumps between freelancing jobs and continuing my education in night college, correspondence and part time courses before I was able to find my strong ground and move up in the carrier and grow financially.

But now there is hope and there are few NGO that have taken up this important issue and work transparently. One among then is Vidyavikas Trust and I know these people personally and have supported them in the past and would continue to do so.

Vidyavikas Trust:
It all began through humble means. When a couple like-minded friends noticed that the kids in a nearby orphanage had no means of continuing their education, they started thinking about ways they can help in their own way. Today, almost 6 years after it began, Vidya Vikas has grown from helping only a handful of children to an organization that supports more than 50 students continue their education. It is a non-profit charitable organization recognized by the Government of Karnataka, India. It has members in different continents who have one goal, make a difference in the life of someone deserving. The guiding philosophy for the organization has remained the same all through - development through education or Vidya Vikas.

Any one can see the full details of all the students they support online at their web site and a donor can contact and keep in touch with the beneficiary if need be. Vidya Vikas trust is run by educated professionals who are committed to contributing their time and effort towards helping educate the deserving economically backward youth. There are no overhead costs to run the operations of Vidya Vikas.

Please contact their representatives, if you would like to know more about this small step towards a giant goal. Your help matters! Do visit this page to find how you can make a difference.

Please note that contributions made to Vidya Vikas Trust now qualify for Indian Tax Exemption under 80G of the I.T. Act. You may contact them over by email at ( info [at] vidyavikas [dot] org) for more details.

Currently they are trying to help a very deserving candidate.. Mr. Umesha S. E, he is visually challenged (blind) student since birth and studying in the second year M.A. Economics in the department of studies in Economics and Co-operation University of Mysore. He has an excellent academic records and he has chosen Economics for his PG and likes to specialized in Econometrics.

He has sent a full email with details about him and his requirement; if you are willing to help and need more info on him do contact me (akshath [at] gmail [dot] com) or Vidya Vikas Trust ( info [at] vidyavikas [dot] org)

He is also requested that he needs a laptop so that it can help him in his education.

“With the help of a laptop, I can avail the privileges of screen reading softwares like JAWS and text scanning and reading softwares like KURZWEIL.

Since the laptop is portable, I can use it wherever I go and save much of time.

A laptop is useful in note taking in classes and special seminars.

Since I have to do project in this semester and pursue research after this semester, a laptop would be very useful in collection and analysis of data because it can be taken into the field.

Since we have a huge power fluctuations and frequent power cuts in our hostel, a laptop greatly helps me in avoiding wastage of time due to its battery power supply.

During longer power cuts, a laptop can be carried to any place where I have access to electricity.”

I can totally understand this. Though I have good eyesight; I have been using text-to-speech softwares like ‘ReadPlease’ and ‘TextAloud’ for more than 6 years and it has been a great help in my process of knowledge gathering and even help me in preparing to clear my exams from B.Sc to M.Sc.

The Vidyavikas trust can manage all of his expenses except for the laptop. They have called for any donors who can donate a used laptop. Only min requirement is that it should have an inbuilt speakers and mic for simple reasons that he is visually challenged. The Trust might even pay for ur laptop some amount.

So this is my sincere request to all; please do try and help the cause, in any way you possible can or at least pass the word so that it will reach the people who can make a difference. Thanks

If you are willing to help and need more info on him or th trust do contact me (akshath [at] gmail [dot] com) or Vidya Vikas Trust directly ( info [at] vidyavikas [dot] org)

UPDATE 08.April.2008 : New laptop was donated by Raveendra and subhash BG, USA combined and the same has been delivered to Umesh SE by the trust.

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