Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement Site Visit Report

Kanika Khanna (khannakanika11@gmail.com)Asha for Education, San Diego (Chapter and Project Coordinator)July 27, 2018

I had been in contact with Mr. N. Ramkumar (Team Lead – Tribal Education Teacher Education, Training and Research at SVYM) for a couple of weeks prior to my visit. I visited the campus on July 27, 2018. He recommended me to book a cab via Travel Parkz which is SVYM’s official partner for travel during conferences and for foreign delegates, students, teachers, doctors etc. from in and around central Mysore. I traveled to the following two destinations:

1. SVYM Saragur OfficeHanchipura Road, Saragur H.D.Kote Taluk,Mysuru District-571121 Karnataka, INDIA Tel/ (08228) 265877, 265412 

2. Viveka Tribal Center for Learning (VTCL) Beeramballi Post, N-BegurH.D.Kote, Mysuru.

A. SVYM Saragur Office

I started at 7 AM from my hotel at Mysore and on the way the cab driver told me a little bit about his earlier visits to SVYM. He narrated about the doctors who travel frequently from hospitals in Mysore to Vivekanada Memorial Hospital at Saragur office. I reached the Saragur office at around 8.30 AM (almost ~60 km from central Mysore). I was received by Mr. Ramkumar and we went to the canteen to have a quick breakfast. Mr. Ramkumar is a PhD in Education and is working with SVYM for almost 5 years now. He told me that there are ~600 employees in SVYM (including all its branches and offices in Karnataka). He provided me with an overview of his plans to show me around the two offices. He also contacted Melli, a fellow Asha volunteer to see if we could touch base with her but due to conflicting schedules, we were unable to do that.

After breakfast, Mr. Ramkumar first showed me SVYM’s official youtube video to get a sense of the work SVYM does. He also showed me 2016-17 annual report. I was a bit surprised that almost 40% of their income is self-generated. This consists of the products generated by workers in tribal communities including ragi flour, calendars, handicrafts etc.

Vivekananda Memorial Hospital

The hospital caters to tribal communities and low-income people in nearby villages. According to Mr. Ramkumar, if a treatment/medicine costs Rs. 10, they

charge the person Rs. 3 (almost 30% of the original cost). They also had an X-ray facility and an ICU.

I was taken to a relatively new facility at the hospital set up by All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysore (AIISH) about 10 months ago. There were 3 students from AIISH who had set up equipment for detecting hearing disorders, speech impairment etc. They had many cases of newborn babies for treatment of hearing problems and stuttering in younger kids.

There was another SVYM worker in the same office (unfortunately, I forgot to take note of the name) who was developing a community project to document disabilities prevalent in the villages. People with disabilities have an inherent low self-esteem and hence it is difficult to bring them out in the open so that they can be treated properly. She is literally knocking every door in the surrounding villages so that these people can get proper treatment and access to good healthcare.

Another facility that I visited was an integrated Allopathy, Ayurveda and Yoga center. There were 8-10 nurses (almost equal proportion of males and females). They had a steam chamber for treatment of obesity. One of the nurses told me about a person who lost 5 kg in one week by Ayurvedic treatments along with proper diet and yoga incorporated in his schedule.

Community Radio Station

Next, Mr. Ramkumar took me to the community radio station at SVYM office called Janadhwani (medium of communication being Kannada). It was started in 2012 and since then they have broadcasted almost 180 shows every year. They are able to reach almost 200 villages in the area. The shows are recorded and available on google app. Many of the participants are govt officials from nearby divisions including commissioners, forest officers, police superintendent etc. Students and teachers from Viveka School of Excellence also participate frequently to host educational segments. The host of the station told me once they were contacted by a person in Mumbai to discuss environmental issue they once discussed during one of their shows. This highlights the far-reaching impact their show has gained with time and that it is not just limited to the boundaries of Karnataka.

Viveka School of Excellence

Next, Mr. Ramkumar took me to Viveka School of Excellence in the Saragur campus at around 9.30 AM. It is an 18 acre campus. Mr. Pavan Kumar, the Principal showed me around. He had been teaching Social Science for 10 years prior to becoming the President and continues to teach. The School follows CBSE syllabus till 10 th standard and State Board for 11th-12th standard. This school charges nominal fee from the parents who can afford and some scholarships are available for low-income students. For instance, a parent from a well-to-do background may sponsor an additional kid.

Each student also donates Re. 1 every week and at the end of the year, they have sufficient funds to sponsor a couple of kids.

Till a couple of year ago, they had only section per each class and each class had 30-40 students. Recently, more students have enrolled in pre- and primary school. Now they have a total of 16 sections with multiple sections for preschool, 1st and 2nd

standard. They had 97% pass percentage last year in CBSE 10 th board examination. I was first taken to the library and the computer room. There wasn’t anyone present as no class had a period then. The library looked well stocked. Mr. Pavan told me about various programs they had started to encourage reading among kids and build their library capacity. For example, they would sponsor a book that a teacher wanted to read on the condition she would donate it to the library once she had finished reading. Another concept was that of ‘Birthday Book’. Every student or teacher would donate one book to the library on their birthday.

Then Mr. Pavan took me to their Science Exploratory Park. It was an initiative of an SVYM worker (an IIT Madras alumnus who worked with SVYM for almost 9 years) and funded by Govt. of Karnataka. It consists of playful experiments related to high-school physics topics like centrifugal force, direction of motion etc. Schools from nearby areas in the Taluk also visit and this is hence a community resource now.

By the time, we left the Science Exploratory Park, students were having their snack break They were seated on mats on the ground and having snacks they got from home.

I then left with Mr. Ramkumar for VTCL in our cab. It was approximately an hour ride from the Saragur office. We reached there at around 11 AM.

B. Viveka Tribal Center for Learning (VTCL)

Mr. Ramkumar introduced me to the teaching staff and the human resource manager who were OK with respect to conversing in English. The human resource manager showed me around the entire campus. VTCL had arrangements for boys’ hostel, 1-6 th

grade classes, 1-3rd grade English medium classes and quarters for staff and faculty. Just a 5 minute walk from VTCL was Vivekananda Teacher Training and Research Center (VTTRC). VTTRC had arrangements for girls’ hostel, 7 th-10th grade classes and students enrolled in D. Ed teacher training course. The total strength was ~520. The students also received basic education in agricultural practices.

The hostels had bunk beds that houses 16-20 students in one room. Both VTTRC and VTCL had mess facility. The food supplies would come from Central HD Kote Taluk in a bus everyday. They had poha/upma for breakfast; ragi balls, sambhar, rice, dahi for lunch; sambhar, a subzi, rice/chapati, dahi for dinner. Students would volunteer to serve food in rotation.

When I reached, students of one class had physical education classes and were playing with hoopla. Girls and boys were playing separately. The HR manager told me the

issues she had to deal with – staff salaries, disputes between mess workers and teachers. She acted as a counselor for the campus basically. In the road between VTCL and VTTRC were a row of tribal houses. According to the HR manager, many families did not send their kids to school despite the proximity of VTCL to their houses.

I faced a problem of language barrier while trying to converse with students and staff. They were more comfortable in their mother tongue Kannada. About 50-60% of students could understand bits of English and only 3-4 students could speak English with moderate levels of confidence.

Next, I visited first and second year of D.Ed class. The first year had ~10 students (who were studying environmental science modules) and the second year ~15-18 students. Two students from second year who were fluent in English (Asha and Charulata) showed me around the school. They took me to their Science and Maths lab and showed me the experimental setups and modules used for teaching school students. The Science lab was empty, both Asha and Charulata showed me how to use different setups and they were pretty confident in the concepts. They told me that in the first year you learn how to teach the basics of all the subjects and then they chose a topic they want to specialize in. Asha chose History and Charulata chose Science. In the maths lab, kids from 5th standard were working on problems along with their teacher and I could not interact with them again due to language barrier. Then we went to the library where ~15 students were engrossed in reading.

Following this, Mr. Ramkumar and another school teacher combined first and second year D. Ed students into one class so that they could interact with me. The school teacher acted as a translator between me and the students for parts where they couldn’t follow English. After a few minutes I was able to break the ice with them. The discussion was mostly focused around my research on bacteria, how they can be harmful and beneficial to us. They started asking many questions and we talked for nearly an hour about education in general towards the end as well. Following this, Mr. Ramkumar took me to the hostel mess for lunch. And then we met the the current CEO, Mr. Kumar GS who worked at the Vivekananda Memorial Hospital since 2006. We couldn’t talk for long but briefly touched upon discussions for better education and learning environment for the tribal kids. Mr Ramkumar discussed how as Asha we could help with more than just funds. We thought of having skype call with kids and show them around our lab and work like we have been doing with another project (Aavishkaar). He was also very keen on connecting with people in education department in the US who could send interns for research work to their institute and together could think of strategies for the improvement of the kids’ lives.

At around 2 pm, I departed back with Travel Parkz cab. I will try to follow up on the discussions I had with Mr. Ramkumar to see how AfE can provide more than just funding in our subsequent meetings. Mr. Ramkumar is very passionate for the cause. Hopefully, we can contribute for the same.

Viveka School of Excellence Science Exploratory Park at Viveka School

Community Radio Station, Saragur

VTTRC, Hosahalli with D.Ed students

VTCL with class 6th students and Dr. Kumar GS, CEO (SVYM)

VTCL, Library VTCL, Science Lab

VTCL, Maths lab

Vivekananda Memorial Hospital, Ayurveda and Yoga center, steam chamber on right