They say give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. This is exactly Ekal Abhiyan is doing, empowering the downtrodden through education, targeting especially the rural India. It is a people’s movement from darkness to light.
Ekal Abhiyan is supported by Bharat Lok Shiksha Parishad (BLSP), which was founded in 2000. The seeds of education were sown way back in 1988, starting with remote villages in Jharkhand. Since then Ekal has come a long way but still miles to go. At present, over 52,000 Ekal Vidyalayas are educating more than 14 lakh children. It aims to cover one lakh villages in India. Currently, it is running the show with 6,000 fulltime volunteers, who are paid honorarium for their services. Their food and travel allowance is taken care of.
The schools are run under trees, in temples, village courtyard and even at teacher’s home. The format is one village, one teacher with 30 students of 6 to 14 years of age, mainly focusing on 3R’s (reading, writing and arithmetic). The teachers are local youth, mostly females. Ekal aims 100% literacy among tribal and rural children across the length and breadth of India. The operating cost is Rs 20,000 per school per annum. Besides education, it is also zeroing in on health care, with special emphasis on personal hygiene, sanitation and others. It is also strengthening rural India by cow-based agriculture and entrepreneurship, tailoring, computer training, etc.
Ramesh P Shah, Ekal Global CO-Coordinator, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA, says: “Education is the need of the hour. It’s the most powerful weapon to bring a positive change in society. Talent is there in everyone, but there is a grave need to provide opportunity to the talented to exploit their latent ability to the maximum positively. It is very important to appreciate the infinite potential in each child and provide a channel to tap it to the fullest. And the best way to do it is to spread education, making people aware about the positive effects of being intolerant to ignorance.”
However, it is not an easy task to convince the conservative parents,particularly menfolk, in rural India, especially on girls’ education and housewives working as teachers.
Shah says: “It's always a daunting task to convince the elderly in remote villages in India. They don't believe in sending their children to school, especially girls, and to overcome that mindset, we take refuge in Swami Vivekananda's philosophy - 'If a child cannot go to school, school must reach to the child'. So we are setting up makeshift schools under trees, village courtyards to make things easy.”
Ekal Abhiyan is a beacon of hope in education. Its might lies in its mite to effect a positive change in society. The world will certainly become a better place to live in.
