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(Chronicle note-We have received following appeal from Ankit Mittal, a student volunteer for Kashi Utkarsh. He appeals to alumni on behalf of the organization for financial help for Saloni for heart operation. Saloni is a 6-yr old girl from Lehertara slum, Varanasi, who is suffering from serious congenital disorders. The organization is still needs funds for her treatment at a Bangalore hospital.
We appeal all our alumni to help generously for this and other causes taken up by the Kashi-Utkarsh Committee. Email: kashiutkarsh@gmail.com)
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As you would be aware that Kashi Utkarsh (http://www.itbhu.ac.in/ku), is voluntary group run by the students of IT-BHU, Varanasi which works for Social cause in the area of health, hygiene, education and general awareness for the people residing in the slum areas of Varanasi since 2000.
(Saloni)
In Lehertara slums, we came across the case of Saloni, a 6 year old girl, who is suffering from serious congenital disorders. Having inspected her medical reports, the doctors at BHU concluded that her condition is fast deteriorating because of a rare cardiac complication. It has been recommended that she should undergo a heart surgery as soon as possible. This surgery, however, cannot be conducted locally in and around Varanasi with existing expertise and facilities. Her hope for survival relies on this heart surgery which may be followed by a valve / any other implant. We have requested Dr. Devi Shetty (Founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bangalore) and he has gracefully agreed to take up the case of Saloni. An estimated expenditure for carrying out the surgery and post-operation care is about Rs 3 lakhs.
It is noteworthy to mention that earlier, in 2005, Kashi Utkarsh had facilitated collection of funds for Pinky, another girl child of Varanasi slums, who went through a successful heart surgery under Dr. Devi Shetty at Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bangalore. Thanks to our Alumni who showed a lot of support and involvement for her operation. This incident has blessed Pinki with life and good health.
Attached here, is an appeal that requests active involvement from our alumni for this noble cause. Also, it shall be of really helpful if we can receive support in arranging logistics (like local stay in Bangalore for volunteer student and accompanying parent(s) in the 2nd week of May 2011, arranging strong references at Narayana Hrudayalaya, Bangalore etc.).Also we may need some units of Blood preferable O+ve so all who can donate blood can mail their contact details we may contact you when required.
For Kashi Utkarsh,
Regards,
Ankit Mittal
Contact No.-9807561790
Undergraduate Student,
Part-II, IDD, Civil Engineering
IT-BHU, Varanasi.
Email-Ankit.Mittal.civ09@itbhu.ac.in
Email: kashiutkarsh@gmail.com
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Kashi Utkarsh has following faculty members as guides:
- · Prof A. K. Ghosh (Dept. of Metallurgical Engineering)
- · Prof. Usha Rani Bansal (wife of Late Prof. B. B. Bansal)
Following is the partial list of student volunteers for Kashi Utkarsh. There are many more, particularly from 1st and 2nd years.
- Abhinav Bansal (4th yr Mechanical)
- Sarvesh Khosla (4th yr Pharmaceutics)
- Gopal Sharma (4th yr Pharmaceutics)
- Anurag Sharma (3rd yr Mechanical)
- Ashish Vaya (3rd yr Electrical)
- Ankit Mittal (2nd yr Civil)
- Nishant Gupta (2nd yr Electronics)
- Prabhakar Gautam (1st yr Mining)
- Ravi Teja (1st yr Civil)
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More about Kashi-Utkarsh
Email: kashiutkarsh@gmail.com
IT-BHU Kashi Utkarsh
KASHI UTKARSH
a beautiful world… for all!
Beyond the skies, the hope lies and
We dream of a better tomorrow with open eyes !!!
Kashi Utkarsh is a student run social organization of the Institute of Technology which has been working for the alleviation of misery, penury and disease in its adopted village of Lehartara, Varanasi. It was in 1997 when two IT students Anupam Bansal and Vinod Chowdhary firmly decided to work for the welfare of poor and backward children of the society and thus established a social group of IT students with the name Kashi Utkarsh. Afterwards, Late Prof. B. B. Bansal helped Kashi Utkarsh a lot especially in opening boarding school in Susuwahi Basti with the name Utkarsh Bhawan.
Following the trends, their juniors worked with the same spirit and it can be called the good fortune of KU and the children of Basti that from then till now these adolescents have always procured someone or other to be called “Bhaiyaji”. Currently around 30 volunteers from IT are working for the upliftment of these peopleIt is here, that our work begins. Our effort is to break these shackles of mental confinement; to provide hope and a vision of a better life to these suffering souls. What we endeavor is to make the available opportunities visible to these closed eyes. We motivate people to rise, come up and build up a more prosperous society with their own hands.
Kashi Utkarsh also visualizes something for its team members [students of IT-BHU], participants at this forum, most of whom are young students with youthful raw ideas and an infant experience of realities of life. Kashi Utkarsh provides a platform for these bright, youthful ideas to get a hands-on practical experience of serving life. Thus, enabling them to become progressively in sync with the realities so that these humanists move out well prepared and with a hardened realistic and practical vision. These could then move out into individual spheres better equipped to engineer a revolution towards a more equitable society.
Our Vision & Philosophy:
® To make the slum dwellers and others needy become progressively self-dependent thereby gaining confidence to pursue their desired objectives.
Direction:
® To generate awareness of importance of education.
® Enabling a few people from amongst the community to emerge as role models for others thereby catalyzing the process of their mental and social upliftment
® Creating awareness among people about various schemes and programmes of government available for their betterment
® Creating general awareness about health and hygiene
® Medical camps and health check-ups.
® Setting up of self-help group within colonies to arrange for employment
Work Areas:
® Slum clusters at:
o Lehartara
o Susuwahi [ Harijan Basti of beggars who sit outside campus VT]
® MESS workers at BHU [mess chotus].
When we started:
® Few students went to school.[Dropout rate was high]
® A general feeling of low confidence as well as a lack of vision for betterment among people persisted
® People were generally unaware of the government policies available to them.
® No concern towards health was there.
Where we have reached:
® Nearly 150 students in Lehartara regularly go to school.
® People have gradually realized the importance of education and are now willing to pay for the educational expenses of their children.
® Many of the students have reached higher classes and have been able to effectively develop a dream for their future.
® Villagers at SUSUWAHI have been able to construct their homes under the Indira Awas Yojana funds provided by the government.
® For Tsunami we collected Rs.100000 and 100 ton of food (rice etc.) medicines and clothes .These things are distributed by our team members itself who went to south India.
® Operation of Pinki, an 11 year old child with a hole in her heart at Narayan Hrudayalaya Bangalore by Dr. Devi Shetty.[For Pinki we arranged Rs.90,000]
® Since 2005 special tuitions are given to good performers at basti schools so as to get admissions in Jawahar Navodaya Vidhyalayas [JNV].Since then 7 students have cleared the entrance exams of JNV’s.
® Regular medical camps organized at basti’s.
® Hepatitis B doses given to basti people.
® 15 mess workers attend daily classes held inside the campus regularly for the past 3 years.
Current Activities:
® Sponsoring nearly 50 students with regard to their complete or partial educational expenditure.
® Giving special training to selected students for admission into the Navodaya stream of education.
® A day boarding school is running for the children of Suswahi.
® Periodical medical camps are organized.
® Yearly blood donation camp at IT-BHU.
® Organizing periodical competitions for sports, academic, cultural and personality building for basti children.
® Sponsoring riksha bicycle for employment in Lehartara.
Work in immediate future:
® Generating enthusiasm among mess workers by organizing a series of educational, cultural and sports competitions.
® Monitoring the progress of students funded by Kashi Utkarsh
® Determination of suitable employment opportunities befitting various groups of people in bastis and setting up of self-help groups for arranging the same
How we work:
® Currently we have a team of around 30 budding engineers.
® We visit the bastis every weekend.
® Group meetings are held on all Fridays to plan out the visits & work to be done.
® We get our major funds from IT students who donate amounts starting from Rs. 10 from their monthly mess bills.
® Other source is alumni donations.
Our Latest Project:
A day-boarding school for slum children, Basti identified: Susuwahi.
Project:
A day-boarding school for children who inherit beggary as their family profession. They don’t get food at home because their parents beg to fill their stomachs, there is nobody to send them to school in the morning, or give them a bath. They are born and left to grow up on their own with no other choice but beggary. Main motive behind this project is that children are the future of any culture we want to nurture in them the goodness of life which their parents could not so that their future generations inherit values and good habits.
Why a boarding school:
We are working in Suswahi for the last 7 years; even after putting the best of our effort output that we got was negligible.
Let’s see some of our efforts and outputs:
® We visit Suswahi at every Saturday and Sunday and give a bath to children. Those are the only days when they are clean and if we focus on place where they live, they need minimum 10 washings a day to save them from being ill.
® We employed a teacher in Suswahi to teach the children and tried to develop a good culture among them. They spend 2 hour with the teacher and rest 22 hours with their family.
® The teacher after teaching them in morning sends them to school. Most of the children leave classes and go to VT [Vishwanath temple, BHU] to beg along with their families.
® There is increase in no. of deaths of small children due to starvation.
Though we have limited time we are applying our best effort but not getting desired results so here we need to do something different from other bastis hence, boarding school.
Work:
We have rented a place near Hyderabad gate to open our school and have employed a teacher and few helpers.
Our work starts early morning, one person from the school will go to the basti and get the children. Their day starts with a bath, changing into clean clothes, nutritious breakfast, reading and games etc.
Here we not only try to educate them, but also give their thinking a new direction.
Output achieved so far:
It was impossible to bring a change in children without keeping them away from their family culture. But by our day boarding school we keep them with us during the day while in the night they stay with their families. So we are not detaching them from their parents.
By providing food, hygienic place to live, education and guidance we give them a healthy atmosphere to grow.
Expenses:
Currently have 20 children between the age group 2-15 years. We need a good place with a play ground and a couple of teachers and servants to cook food, wash the clothes and to clean the rooms.
Monthly expenditure: Rs. 10000
Total Annual budget: Rs. 1,20,000.00
Attached is the news coverage on Sahara News channel. Double click to open. You must have media player installed to see the same.
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Kashi Utkarsh articles in Chronicle
*About Kashi Utkarsh, a social service organization run by students/faculty of IT-BHU
http://www.itbhuglobal.org/chronicle/archives/2009/01/about_kashi_utk.php
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(if you having troubles, try posting your comment on this page or send an email to chronicle @ itbhuglobal.org)Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP