Dear donors and friends, I am here by sending the report (without any editing) sent by event organizers Mr Kirit and Dr Raghu.
The high-lights of the event are: 1.Asst General Manager of State Bank of India participated and contributed Rs.10,000 on behalf of SBI. Event expenses were also born by SBI. 2.I requested the presence of the girl's mother in the event when I was told that she would not be there in the function. I am happy she was there. FFEI, as a policy give importance to both parents in everything it does. It always recognizes the contribution of mother in one's life. 3.The event was well organized. 4.She was counseled well by everyone present and hope she stopped thinking of a scooter with the money, atleast for now. 5.As stated in the report, I gave free hand to the organizers and they did very good job. I thank Mr Kirit and Dr Raghu for the job well done. I immensely thank every donor for giving FFEI this worthy opportunity. I wish the girl very best future. I will upload all documentation (DDs, checks etc issued) on to the website as soon as they are available to me. Kirit’s report says Rs.1,35,200 was presented to the girl in the event. It is excludes Rs.4,800 DD already issued to the girl to join English Learning Course, and Rs. 5,000 yet to be sent to her from FFEI. We will finish it in a few days. The total aid given to the girl is Rs. 1,45,000. Any questions, please write to me. THANK YOU. Benjamin =========================================================================== Report on the event as sent by Mr Kirit and Dr Raghu DD presentation report DD of Rs.1,35,200/- was hand over to the brave girl on behalf of the donors via the FFEI at the SBI, Bapunagar, Gujarat, India, on 22/4/2010, Time-5.00pm to 6.00pm After a long hard work of the wiser people, we are able to reached at the stage where we feel honor of giving the girl small financial gift to build her future. I would like to give precise back ground of this case. Since her childhood the girl has been brilliant in her studies. As she told me in few professional counseling sessions, her dream was to become a doctor but due to her poor financial situation and suffering from her ascribed status, she and her family realized that it is not possible for her to join medicine therefore; she decided to pursue her career in teaching. She joined Primary Teacher Course (PTC) as a meritorious student. This course is run by District institute of Education and Training, under the Department of Education, Government of Gujarat During the PTC course, she was repeatedly raped by her own six course teachers. She came forward to complaint against culprits and got them punished. Now this all six teachers are sentenced for life imprisonment. Her family suffered a lot physically, mentally, socially, and financially. Girl’s suffering was different than the family, as she is unmarried and pursing studies in the same institute where culprit teachers are been sent to imprisonment. Her village friends, institute mates and her cousins were also maintaining distance from her. Non government Organisation (NGO) working in the field of human rights, women rights and for the rights of untouchable had started calling her and visiting her house with the objectives to use her in order to mobilize local, national and international fund on her name. Amongst them few got success also as per her information but then the financial support never reached to the victim. After our intervention in this case most of the NGOs and other messiah of Dalits and Women rights have mostly stopped. As I discovered, only one person who stood beside her and has been still standing with her is her father. I strongly believe that without his support this girl could have taken a wrong step and she would have ended her life in very initial stage of this case. Br.Benjamin Kaila came to know about this case through online news paper in mid of November, 2009 and he sent a group email requesting if anyone could come forward to find the fact on this case. As I live in Gujarat, replied him, after few weeks with the baseline and field visit on Saturday, 5/12/2009 and I also prepared the fact finding report and submitted to Br.Banjamin Kaila. From here, Brother Kaila worked hard to bring this case at this level. Dr.Raghavan Raghurajan, Theoretical Physics Division, Physical Research Laboratory ( A Unit of Department of Space, Government of India) he jumped into the issue who has basic understanding of social welfare work but surprisingly within very short time, he became a strong support and guide for this case. His strong humanly concern in this case is evidence by his calling me in day and night and keeps on working on this case. I got astonished to know his voluntary contribution of teaching English to poor children beside his professional responsibilities. He invited me to visit his office and I got honored to have lunch with him. Though he is a very busy scientist, and academician, he never showed tiredness, he always kept himself ready to work on this case. Therefore, for me, he is turn out to be a contemporary example of Neo social worker in the Sfield of community work. Without his support this work would have been a bit incomplete. As Br. Benjamin has given us free hand to organize DD handing over event, we scheduled the function on 22/04/2010 at 4.30pm. We had very deep thinking for not to allow any person/people/organization to misuse this event for his/her personal, political or organizational gain. We decided to invite people who have given their life, time, skills and support for the development of the under privileged sections of society. After few meetings between Dr.Raghurajan and me, we came in consensus to call following dignitaries; 1. Shri Anil Kumar Gupta (Assistant General Manager, State Bank of India) 2. Fr.Paul (St. Xavier's Social Service Society) 3. Smt.Parkshitaben Gujjar (DSP, Gujarat Police) 4. Shri.Rameshchandra Parmar (A Dalit Panther and activist) 5. Shri Ashokbhai Chaudhary (A Tribal Activist and Gandhian) 6. Shri Kantilal Siddheswari, visual handicap person (Activist for Disability rights) 7. The Girl 8. Shri Victim’s father 9. Smt.Victim’s mother Among them Smt. Parkshitaben Gujjar and Shri Ashokbhai Chaudhary were unable to attend this occasion for their personal reasons. Event started 30 minutes late, the function began with Kirit Parmar welcoming all the guest and saying a few words about our efforts. He then invited Mr. Anil Kumar Gupta to hand over the DD of Rs. 1, 35,200/- to the girl and asked him to say a few words. Mr. Gupta said How her courage was a lesson to all that they should have the courage to speak up when victimized/offended and to fight for justice. He also added that one should not suppress his/her voice against any form of violence; they should come forward to seek help from judiciaries to punish the culprit. I believe this girl would be role model for others. He also talked about how State Bank of India helps economically poor student. Every year, SBI branch adopts one girl student to support her education as long as she continues with her education. He also said, he will discuss this case with SBI administration for future help. He also contributed Rs.10, 000/- on behalf of the State Bank of India. He also guided girl, why she should not think about buying scooter and also given his financial rational behind it. When Smt. Bela Kirit and I went to invite Mr.Anil Kumar Gupta for this event, though he was busy he promised us to attend the event and also requested us to allow them to take care of all expenses of the event. He personally called the Branch Manager and instructed him to organize the event. I also come to know through Smt.Bela on 22/04/2010, since morning he was taking update/follow up on progress of the arrangement via phone. Mr.Gupta’s commitment did not end here; he arrived at SBI branch at 4pm before half an hour of the program scheduled. He also instructed his official car driver to drop Shri Rameshchandra Parmar and Shri Kantilal Siddheswari at their respective home in his car after the completion of the function. Father Paul: Father said, he met this girl long time back also offered her job. He also appreciated role of FFEI and Dr.Raghurajan and others who are a part of this work. According to him, he feels that we are able to developed link between this work and bank. He seems to be pre- occupied with his work therefore just after the DD was handed to the Girl by Shri.Gupta he left the event. Dr.Raghavan Raghurajan: Dr.Raghavan introduced FFEI and its work in the field. Dr. talked about how the FFEI helps the poor student and this is one of its works which come to its destination. He also talked how this money should be utilize, i.e. FD and other expenses. He also played very supportive role to organize this event, he used his personal car to pick up and drop the guests and girl’s family. As my house is located in slum area, though he struggled but reached before time and he had informal discussion with girl and her family i.e her father and her mother. Even Dr. used local Gujarati language to give more meaningful conversation and conformability to girl and her family. Dr.Rameshchandra Parmar (Dalit Panther and writer) He initiated his speech with Sayajirao Gayakwad, he shared his work in speech, according to him, Dr. Ambedkar became big person because of Gayakwad’s scholarship otherwise it is not possible for him to become what he was. He said, Dr.Ambedkar initially was not bright student, rather he was naughty but later on he gave meaning to education. When Dr.Ambedkar was young, he lived nearer to the fish market which is very noisy public market. His father used to make him to sleep early until market goes close and in the middle of the night to morning Dr.Ambedkar used to do his academic study work. That’s how he studied in his life but scholarship had played a major role in his life. Same way, this girl should also understand that this is the opportunity for her. He also appreciated Kirit and FFEI’s work to help this girl. Kirit Parmar then read out the letter from Benjamin Kaila and translated it into Gujarati. The Girl’s father was asked if he would like to say anything but he declined. The girl was requested to speak and she agreed. She spoke with honesty and dignity about the difficult times she had faced and the support she has received. One of the SBI officials present told her she was an example to others and a source of inspiration to all. Kirit Parmar then thanked all for being present and the function concluded with snacks and ice-cream provided by the bank. The function went off very smoothly thanks to the arrangements made by Kirit's wife who works at the bank. A little later some of those present went to the bank manager's office to initiate the formalities of depositing the DD and creating the FD. At that time Mr. Gupta announced an additional contribution from SBI of Rs. 10,000/. The FD to be created will now be for Rs. 1, 10,000 for 5 years with interest paid quarterly (approximately Rs. 1800 per anniversary quarter). The FD should be ready by Monday. The remaining Rs. 35,200 will be in her savings bank account. She was also told about the additional Rs. 5000 that is expected. The girl expressed an interest in using the money to buy a scooter to help her get to the school where she has now got a job as a teacher's assistant at a salary of Rs. 2500 a month. She was advised to wait until she was comfortable at her job (she has been teaching since last Tuesday) and possibly till the beginning of the new academic year. After this, the girl and her family, Raghu and Kirit went to Kirit's home. The girl's father was very grateful and thanked FFEI for its contribution. He has invited Raghu and Kirit to his home and so they will go on Tuesday or Wednesday with the FD once it is ready. A scanned copy of the DD will be sent to Benjamin and Mr. Rao for FFEI records. Report prepared by Dr.Raghvan Raghurajan Kirit Parmar ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An educated man without character and humility was more dangerous than a beast. If his education was detrimental to the welfare of poor, he was a curse to society. -Babasaheb Dr B R Ambedkar Please visit www.friendsforeducation.org or www.ambedkarscholarship.org
