TATA JAGRITI YATRA - Social Entrepreneurs like Chittup Lama onboard

The Tata Jagriti Yatra is an ambitious 18 day odyssey that takes 400 carefully selected Yatris from all over India to discover the spirit of enterprise, even in the far flung rural hinterlands of India. It is quite natural that such a Yatra should attract achievers and change makers. Amongst the 2010 Yatris, there are many heroic stories of social entrepreneurship. From village sarpanch to founders of innovative social movements, you can find them all on this train.

One of the most inspiring stories is that of Chittup Lama from Humla district of Nepal. Chittup suffers from night blindness, a condition which does not allow him to see clearly especially at night. Understanding the problems of the disabled, Chittup has started Himalayan Education and Development (HEAD) Nepal for physically and mentally challenged individuals. His focus now is on children with blindness and imparting education to them. What is his model? “I have developed HEAD mobile blindness school for children. Since there is electricity problem in my district, I will take solar powered computers to teach these children basic skills. All the equipment and resources will be carried on horsebacks!” Chittup’s vision for Nepal is truly inspiring. To advance his goals, he has been pursuing a course in social entrepreneurship from the international institute of social entrepreneurship in Trivandrum. Now he is all set to go back to Nepal and be the change he wants to see.

While education is definitely an important need gap in India, there are many unique approaches to how to impart education to the underprivileged. One such approach is developed by a facilitator on board. Kanchana Katherisan, Founder and Managing Trustee, Praythna, runs a school for children from low income families in Mysore. What is interesting about her model is that it’s a mother-child program wherein even the mother is imparted basic reading and writing skills so that she can contribute to the learning and development of her child. She also makes sure that the mothers acquire some skills such as tailoring or stitching and can earn a decent living through their own enterprises. Many mothers even end up working with her. Kanchana has worked with four NGOs in the past and has amazingly inspiring stories to share. Now, she is creating one of her own. Her school premises are so clean and proper that people often ask her why they should donate money to her at all. She answers, “The challenge is to either keep the children dirty for attracting donors or to teach them to live with dignity. For me, there is no choice at all and I always go with the latter. Even though my school is run entirely on donations, the children don’t get a feel of it.”

Facilitator and Yatri interactions have been critical to the overall experience of ‘jagriti’. Dr. Pralathan, a facilitator on board is the founder of Bhumi, a completely volunteer based organization working with orphaned and underprivileged children, in the field of education. He explains, “I started 4 years ago with a few friends. We started teaching English and computers. Today, we have a volunteer base of 300 and are present in Chennai, Bangalore and Chandigarh.” I ask him how he, an eye doctor, got into education. He adds, “Educated people can handle health better also! I wanted to do something for the country and hence started with education.” Initially, he faced a lot of problems attracting volunteers but today his is the largest volunteer driven organisation in Chennai. Clearly, a lot of good work is already underway. There are stories to build and successes to share. All this and more has happened in the past 18 days and will continue to happen in many ways in the future.

- Unnati Narang