Priyanka’s inspiring story of chasing her dreams
Priyanka is a young girl from in Belgavi, Karnataka. Life has never been easy for her as she was born visually impaired. Her father was a farmer and the sole earning member of the family. They could not afford to treat her.
She enjoyed learning despite her physical limitations. She allowed nothing to stop her and was regular to school. She completed her PUC and BA in Bengaluru. She aimed for greater heights and was not ready to give up.
Unfortunately, her family did not have the means to support her further. They did not want to crush her dreams but were unsure how to pay all the added expenses that would come with her education.
When her parents heard of Samarthanam, they approached the organisation for help. They decided to help Priyanka continue her studies. They provided her with free accommodation, food, recorded course material and assistance in everyday living. Thanks to Samarthanam, she completed her MA from Bangalore University.
She is an enthusiastic learner and scored first class consistently throughout her education. She knows that none of this would have been possible without Samarthanam's care and support.
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What the beneficiary gets
Program Description
Samarthanam started the initiative of providing shelter for young students pursuing their education in Bangalore, in an effort to prevent rural students from dropping out of educational institutions owing to financial constraints. Samarthanam provides these students with secure shelter, nutritious food, and safe transportation.
Though the hostels were initially opened only for young girls, they now cater to students across gender and age groups. To ensure holistic development of the children in the hostels, the organization also provides them with free tuition and exposure to extracurricular activities. Visually impaired students are also given specially recorded course materials, to help them excel in academics.
Samarthanam runs three hostels in Bangalore in HSR Layout and JP Nagar, which can be availed by differently abled, and underprivileged students studying in the city.
Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled
Program Updates
23 March, 2021
Educating Youth
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The purpose of the project is to provide higher inclusive education in renowned educational institutions, by providing free food, accomodation, college tuition and admission fees,facilitating students to participate in the online classes by providing tabs and internet data packs, virtual soft skills, English language and technical trainings, and improved standard of living for the differently abled and underprivileged youth.
Samarthanam Trust for the disabled provides residential facilities for differently-abled students pursuing higher education. It extends practical support to bright students with disabilities who are otherwise unable to pursue higher education on account of their physical or socio economic challenges. The pass outs from higher secondary school with physical or social challenges are identified and enrolled into mainstream colleges for courses of their choice while providing them with comfortable residential facilities. Their academic costs and study materials are taken care of by Samarthanam. For our students with visual impairments and other print-related disabilities, the educational materials are also made available in accessible formats like audio books, large print etc. Regular volunteers also extend reading and scribe services. As a result, some of our students have already passed out of premier institutions like IIMs and are now working in large corporate companies.
In the long term the outcome of the program is to create an inclusive society which provides opportunities without any discrimination for the development of the differently abled people.
This academic year, Higher Education Program Coordinators were able to mobilize and enroll differently abled and underprivileged youth in the age group of 15-25 years to the higher education program across Karnataka. The Coordinators connected students through whatsapp groups and enrolled them to the program. They also counselled the students and the parents and motivated the students to continue their education and asked the students not to dropout from their courses due to the long lockdown imposed by the state and central government due to the onset of COVID-19 pandemic crisis across the country.
Yes, there was a slight deviation in the activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis since April 2020. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis the Higher education batch of 2020-2021 was declared a virtual batch.
Challenges due to COVID-19 Pandemic: For the academic year 2020-2021, most of the Educational Institutions / Universities across Karnataka were either postponed or cancelled the annual examinations to be held during March – August 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic crisis. Few Universities even promoted their students to the next class by considering their internal exam scores and previous semester exam scores.
There was a subsequent delay in the admission process and the Educational Institutions were not able to commence as usual. Even till date the admissions are still ongoing, reopening of the Colleges / Educational Institutions have been delayed, and are also further dependent on the guidelines from UGC and SOPs from State Higher Education Department. Students, parents, teachers are still living in a very uncertain situation with regards to the commencement of the academic year. Currently, there does not seem to be much clarity on when colleges will function as usual and there is a lot of confusion. Also, most of the parents have expressed their consent to colleges to continue the teaching through online mode.
In spite of the ongoing COVID pandemic crisis, students have been enrolled to the program Students are able to continue their higher studies in reputed colleges without getting dropped out. Other differently abled students are also getting motivated to pursue higher studies by seeing their friends graduating successfully and getting employed. Increase in self-worth and self-esteem as their on par with their able bodied students A purpose for life and streamlining of their focus towards a better future A sense of security and emotional bonding. The financial burden of 170 plus parents/families have been drastically reduced The students are able to focus on their studies without any other financial worries Better career opportunities. The ultimate results can only be seen in the long term, but we have taken the first step for their holistic development ensuring that in the long term the results are positive.
5 August, 2020
Joys of providing food to the underprivileged
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Joys of providing food to the underprivileged
The youth stay in the residential home under our care and support. We provide for them end to end. We give them nutritious meals and snacks 3 times a day. We would also love to share with you the other facilities we have enabled for our youth.
English Language training, soft skills, life skills training and computer training were imparted for students.
Visually Impaired students were provided with audio books which would be helpful for them during examinations.
For the below average students remedial class was also arranged.
We have also distributed assistive aids to students
Scribes were arranged for the visually impaired students for the semester examinations held during November and December 2019.
Students have participated in various events / extracurricular activities like sports.
Along with academic studies we also recognize strengths/ talents hidden in each student & help to bring out the best in each of them in extracurricular areas like music, dance, theatre, sports etc. Students have participated in various events / extracurricular activities like athletics, Independence Day celebrations.
