First Annual Ekal Youth Conference 2009 successfully held in Rockville, USA

The First Annual Ekal Youth Conference 2009 was held in conjunction with the Ekal Annual National Meeting at Rockville, MD from 19 - 20 September 2009. The conference theme was Bringing Tomorrow into Today's Choices and was focused on engaging the youth volunteers with newer ideas to strengthen Ekal Foundation's vision for village development, education, and civic empowerment. This is first time where the youth volunteers of Ekal had come together to share and discuss their work, ideas, and plans to enable Ekal activities with better prospects. There were more than 12 papers and presentations - including some very interesting ideas such as, how to implement web based social networking tools for Ekal activities, and deploying a new slate in the schools for students to learn alphabets easily. 

The conference was inaugurated by Sri Charles Regan, Vice President & General Manager, National Geographic Maps. In his motivational speech, Sri Charles Regan mentioned the teacher collaboration activities of National Geographic; and how the strengths of both Ekal and National Geographic to foster education can be leveraged in a mutual beneficial collaboration. He mentioned that "National Geographic can learn an awful lot from Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation's efforts and commitment". He also appreciated Ekal for forming a wonderful network of volunteers, and grassroot works; with the constraints of operating several realities of resource constraints and large people based voluntary organizational framework. He emphasized on the issue of train the trainers, and providing appropriate care, maintenance, feeding of the volunteer grassroots network to sustain the activities in the future. Further, he also enumerated on the role of evaluation and assessment to highlight the impact of the Ekal activities. The statistics from these studies can be used to provide performance statistics from time to time, for the media and policy makers to be aware of the progress of Ekal activities. He assured of the support from National Geographic towards Ekal activities in several modes, and inspired the organization to grow better and bigger to let the World, US, and rest of India know about the activities in more details. 

The main feature of the conference was the research ideas and projects that are being conducted by several youth who are involved with the organization. There were presentations on a map based visualization technique for Ekal schools, creating a media library repository, and healthcare impact assessment of Ekal villages. A novel idea of leveraging several professional service oriented activities for fund raising was discussed. Another powerful idea suggested was to start formal Ekal Chapters at various College campuses across US. In the concluding session, the volunteers, regional presidents, and top decision makers of the organization deliberated on the reflections and insights from the conference. They recommitted to the cause of youth mobilization, and fostering several research ideas by providing support and incentives. Several short, medium, and long-term future plans in this respect were chalked out, and will be implemented in the near future. 

The conference highlighted the passion and zeal of the youth towards the social cause that Ekal is working for, i.e. Education through Empowerment. It was interesting to see the motivated youth sharing their visit experiences to Ekal schools, and having the enthusiasm to contribute towards the cause with more energy and vigor. The abstracts of the papers presented in the conference can be found on the website- www.ekaldc.org/eyc2009 . Plans to host similar conference in 2010 will be released soon.

Here are a few quotes from the Youth Conference:
"It was a great feeling to see all the hard work put together by the organizing committee turn into a reality. Now it is upon all of the volunteers to work on turning the ideas discussed at the Youth Conference into a reality. The success of the First Annual Youth Conference should inspire more youth to get involved with Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation". Pankaj Chadha, Youth Conference Coordinator.

"I feel very fortunate to have helped in planning and coordinating our First Annual National Youth Conference in Washington D.C. It was amazing to see how all the different youth members from all parts of the United States prepared their presentations and presented them so professionally and comprehensively. I felt very proud to be present at this groundbreaking historical event." Ritu Linhart, National Youth Coordinator, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of USA.

Sri M.K. Shukla Narrates his Experience of Dubai Visit

I and Asha visited Dubai on 7^th and 8^th August'09 on a personal visit. The local Ekal committee utilized this opportunity to meet us. A full meeting of the committee was arranged in the office of the Chairman Sri Harshad Mehta. In a brief private meeting, Sri Mehta discussed about the work done by the Dubai centre. Later, we addressed the whole committee. The Secretary, Abhimanyu gave a brief about the activities and future plans. In the evening a meeting of the Indian community was arranged which was attended by a large number of people. I addressed them on the status of education in rural India and Asha gave an impassioned speech about the Ekal Movement and the contribution that Indians living abroad can make for empowering the Vanvasis through the Ekal's integrated education system and why it is necessary for them also. The audience heard us with rapt attention for over an hour and so touched were they that many from the audience offered support for the Ekal movement. Sri Harshad Mehta hosted a private dinner. Next day a lunch in meeting with selected people was organized by Sri Bharat bhai in India Club. Earlier we celebrated Rakshabandhan with the Indian fraternity in the labour area where Asha tied rakhi. We stayed with Sri Mittal. We got an affectionate welcome everywhere. The interaction in the meetings was very fruitful. It was a very pleasant experience of meeting our Ekal colleagues and other members of the Indian community.

Yet Another Student, Dipali, Shows Concern for Ekal

Seventeen years old Dipali Agarwal of Erode Tamil Nadu, daughter of Sri Dinesh Agarwal FTS Treasurer Erode chapter, achieved 96% in her +2 results, requested all her relatives to give her cash instead of gifts of appreciation so that she could collect enough to sponsor a school of Ekal Abhiyan in Talwadi region of Tamil Nadu.