The New Indian Express ·
Tamil Nadu: Sowing seeds for equitable education
CHENNAI: “What difference have the classes made?” The deceptively simple question posed by the orphanage’s management in Chennai, where the three friends had been teaching children during their few spare hours for a handful of weeks, stripped away their comforting illusion that showing up for the kids was all that mattered. Well past the blank stare and silence, the why of it lingered.
For weeks since the Independence Day morning in 2006, the three — Dr K K Prahalathan, an ophthalmologist; Ayyanar Elumalai, a supply-chain professional; and Harishankar Namasivayam, a corporate professional — valued their time spent at the orphanage, sharing their skills and passing along their knowledge to the children. They wanted to teach the kids who had fewer opportunities than most. However, the question made them realise that just good intentions could not make up for a lack of objective.
That haunting question turned into the seed from which the idea of Bhumi, a non-profit organisation, germinated. Twenty years on, the nonprofit has become one of the country’s largest youth volunteering movements, engaging over 1.5 lakh volunteers across nine cities, partnering with over 150 corporate firms, and reaching nearly 95,000 children every year.
