With a single donation of $500,000 from Prabha Jhunjhunwala, daughter of Madanlal Agarwala who started the Ekal Movement in late 1988 in India, the non-profit raised record-setting funds in 2015, collecting over $6 million in the United States alone.
Ekal, which has satellite organizations in 10 countries, raises funds through series of concerts all over the U.S. and through direct appeals to generous philanthropists.
“My father is my inspiration. He was a very compassionate soul and strongly believed that the Ekal movement would transform India. Were he alive, he surely would have been delighted to see strong global support reaching into 53,000 villages,” according to an Ekal press release quoting Prabha Jhunjhunwala.
“When Prabha decided to make a donation in the name of her father, I couldn’t be happier” said Vinod Jhunjhunwala, her husband and president of Ekal-USA.
Refering to her donation, he said that the seed-money will help build an endowment that will ensure strong financial footing for Ekal- USA.
Among others Braham Aggarwal, Avadesh Agarwal, Himanshu Shah and Mohan Wancho have been some of the most generous and valuable benefactors of Ekal.
According to Dilip Kothekar, chairman of Ekal’s event committee, two famous musical groups from ‘Bollywood’ would be performing in series of 60-65 concerts all across USA, starting from February 26’ 2016.
For the past 27 years Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation has been rigorously involved in total transformation of villages, giving sustainability to its people and empowering them. For basic donation of just $365, Ekal has been providing functional literacy and health care training for the whole year to an Ekal-school, consisting of 35-40 children.
For one-time generous donation of $5,000, one can sponsor a whole village for its perpetual development. To make women-folks self-reliant in villages, multiple cottage-industries have been introduced by training them in tailoring, food-processing, and weaving.
The tax-exempt, charitable organization in the U.S. and several other countries is considered globally the largest grassroots village-development movement undertaken by Indians and NRIs. Currently, it is operating all over India, including in Jammu and Kashmir, benefiting over 1.50 million children, half of whom are girls.
Health Foundation for Rural India (HFRI), under the leadership of Dr. Veena Gandhi is committed to eradicate anemia also in Ekal villages. New water conservation techniques, and use of solar-power for domestic use have been adopted in several villages. In addition, an innovative Ekal-on-Wheels digital pilot-project has been launched in some states to make villages computer-literate..
According to Bajrang Bagra, CEO of Ekal-India, Ekal took a giant leap forward in 2015 by establishing 10 village development centers, each catering to the needs of 100 villages, thereby directly impacting at least one million people, and exposing 10 million villagers to innovative techniques.
Villagers, Ekal said, are trained in multiple cropping based on local climate conditions. Pradeep Goyal, chairman of Ekal-India recently confirmed that retraining villagers for agro-farm based products has given them income ranging from Rs.50,000 to Rs.8 Lakhs. Because of Ekal’s extensive rural network, many organizations that were engaged on their own in divine rural projects have now forged alliance with Ekal.
Subhash Chandra, CEO of ZEE-TV Network, has recently joined as the chairman of Ekal-Global. Chandra said he plans to take this ‘literacy’ movement’ to the top of worldwide such campaigns.
According to Subhash Gupta, recent chairman of board of advisers, Ekal derives its strength from its 300,000 global volunteers. As Prime Minister Modi said, “When you invest in village, you are investing in India’s future; let’s develop one village, one school at-a-time. For more information please visit www.ekal.org
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