Social worker Jayadeva’s Deenbandhu rears destitute kids to grow into confident, conscious citizens at Chamrajnagar.
How many of us would devote our lives—or even just a bit of our time, energy and money—for a good cause? It takes courage, kindness, conviction and, more than anything else, a compassionate heart to dedicate your life to something that will benefit humanity.
G. S. Jayadeva’s is one such man. His bio-data runs into several pages, and his drawing room is packed with awards, yet this soft-spoken gentleman becomes an innocent child when he is with the kids of Deeenabandhu, the home he has set up for orphaned, abandoned and destitute kids from all communities. Just a five hour bus drive from Bangalore, past swaying sugarcane fields and tiny quiet hamlets, is the town of Chamarajanagar where the Deenabandhu Trust and Home for Children is located.
Born in 1951, Jayadeva holds a Master’s degree in Zoology. In 1977, impelled by an intense love for nature, he began an initiative in the Billi Ranga Hills, adjacent to Chamrajnagar, among the Soliga tribals. He set up the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra along with some colleagues, focusing particularly on tribal education. “ I realised that I could learn a lot from the tribals as they had very close rapport with Nature,” he says. At this point, he was working as a lecturer in Zoology at J.S.S College, Chamrajnagar. He took a sabbatical from the college to be with the tribals.
In 1992, Jayadeva set up Deenabandhu as a voluntary organization committed to the welfare of orphaned, abandoned and destitute children. It started with six boys in a rented house with support from the Canara Bank Relief and Welfare Society. It sought to provide a stress-free homely atmosphere that ensured that each child developed his or her latent potential. “Our goal is to give children basic education till SSLC and equip them with vocational training,” he explains. The organization arranges for technical and even college education for those with aptitude by linking them with sponsors.
Jayadeva acknowledges the valuable contribution of a kind lady from France, then working with the Reuters, who raised a generous grant to build the attractive, modestly-sized and homely Deenabandhu campus. Presently, there are 45 boys in the age group of three to 16 years under the care of four house mothers, and they live in cottages, on campus. Eight boys are pursuing college studies on financial sponsorship from Deenabandhu. Some others are receiving vocational training. Some of the former boys are now well settled in life having completed their studies.
Deenabandhu’s home for girls was started in 2005 with a batch of nine girls in a rented house. Recently shifted to a spacious, well-designed building, called the “Green Home for Girls”, it houses 31 girls, who are taken care of by house mothers, who treat them like their very own children.
Both the boys and the girls study at the Deenabandhu School, housed in a pleasant edifice, which provides education in the Kannada medium till the 7th class. English is one among the three language taught here. The school, set up in 1998, provides quality education to some 150 other children, from Chamrajnagar, charging only a nominal fee. The school hosts an Educational Resource Centre that provides teacher support activities for government primary school mathematics and science teachers. “We have adopted some government primary schools and train their teachers at workshops, where they are encouraged to use locally available materials as teaching aids. Qualified resource persons provide sustained support to the teachers at the classroom level. We also work with the community so that they develop a sense of ownership of the schools,” Jayadeva explains. “In the school, we include topics like dairy farming and hygiene, too, so that the children are prepared for a rural life, rather than imposing urban technology on them,” he adds.
The Rural Development Programme through Self-Help Groups for Women is also part of the Deenabandhu Trust initiative. As part of the programme, workshops are conducted in villages, where people’s material needs are discussed. Villagers form self-help groups and are taught budgeting, book-keeping, saving schemes and dealing with banks. More effective farming techniques are encouraged by teaching basic horticulture and by preparation of indigenous herbal pesticides. Construction of community and individual toilets is undertaken as part of village health and sanitation programmes.
Another initiative is the Desaigoudar Foundation Scholarship Programme, initiated with the establishment of a generous trust-fund by Mr. Chandrashekhar Desaigoudar, a philanthropist. From this fund, scholarships are awarded to meritorious but poor students from rural government high schools for higher education. So far, 240 students from 14 districts in Karnataka have benefitted from the programme.
Jayadeva has his 24 hours packed. He is also as a member of the Karnataka State Border Area Development Committee, managing trustee of Shakti Dhama, an organization working with destitute women in Mysore, and visiting Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Mysore. Despite all this, Jayadeva remains down-to-earth and modest, friendly and easily approachable, showering his attention in seeking to mould the lives of the children at the Deenabandhu home. His regular spiritual advice to the kids after dinner, based on his readings of the noted mystic Ramakrishna Parmahamsa, has helped the children become confident and positive human beings as their grace, radiance, arresting smiles and bubbling energy clearly indicate.
Treating the children as their own, Jayadeva and his colleagues have truly made Deenabandhu a home for them, where they are nurtured in a love-filled ambience. Surrounded by compassion, care and concern, the children have a home where they are free from fear of parental, peer or societal pressure and expectations. And more than anything else, as I discovered to my delight during a short visit to Deenabandhu, they get the respect that they deserve as children—a rare gift indeed.
Seek wisdom from wherever it comes. Drop in at Deenabandhu and learn from Jayadeva and his children. Address: Deenabandhu, PWD Colony (Behind Forest Nursery), Chamarajanagar-571313, Karnataka. Ph: 08226-222556. Email:deenabandhutrust@gmail.com
Website-deenabandhutrust.org
(With inputs from Yoginder Sikand)
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January 2012 |
