Ahmedabad Round Table-40

After 50 years of independence, 60 Million Indian children had never, ever been to school. Illiteracy is a self-fulfilling curse that perpetuates the chain of poverty, degradation and child labour. To reach out to this group of underprivileged children, we proposed in 1998 to provide basic infrastructure for primary education in rural India, reaching out to about one million children over a period of 5 years. We believe that true freedom for an individual comes only through education.

Keeping the millions of underprivileged children in mind, we declared our Long Term National Project as "Freedom through Education". We believe that true freedom for an individual comes only through EDUCATION.

We have taken several initiatives under this National Project "FREEDOM THROUGH EDUCATION" like Building Programme for Primary Schools, providing infrastructure, provision of educational accessories, Health Care, Vocational and Individual Child Related Programmes in schools adopted by Tables across the country.

In the last 5 years, Round Tables in India have really put in a lot of effort to provide infrastructure in schools. Over 505 projects at a cost of over Rs.420 Million have been completed during this period.

The recent Gujarat Earthquake was another moment, when Round Table India was present in full strength to support the victims of the earthquake. We moved materials to Gujarat from all over India and helped them with immediate relief. We have also collected over Rs.24 Million towards construction of 20 school buildings in Kutch and Surendarnagar Districts of Gujarat. Wipro has contributed a sum of Rs.8 Million towards this initiative.

Round Table India released Braille Dictionaries in Tamil and Marathi languages and distributed the same to several blind institutions. We received accolades from blind people and institutions for this stupendous effort of our association.

The investment in projects is growing every year and the per-capita expenditure on projects of Round Table India is Rs.40,000/- per annum, possibly the highest amongst all service organisation in India.

It is a new freedom movement calling for the entire nation to rise to the challenge and take a stand against illiteracy and its tight grip on generations of Indians. We believe that we can do something to give every Indian a chance, for we have over 60 million children in the age group of 3 - 10, who need to be given basic education. They are our future citizens! They are our country's future!!

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Copyright © 2004 Ahmedabad Round Table 40
Last modified: August 29, 2004