Past Activities (Completed)
- Heritage School Rehabilitation by DRRT
- Filing the World Bank Funding Application
- Local Leadership for Transformation
- Identification of Needs in Kandavara
- Creating the Canadian Trust for Educational Purposes
- Rainwater Harvesting on the Heritage Primary School
- Improving the Dilapidated Dwelling Units
- Sai Maa Foundation Grant of Pills and their Distribution to the Needy
- Debris Removal from Sewer Gutters
- Profiles of Three Poorest of the Poor Families
- The K. V. Educational Trust NSS Comprehensive Clean Up Camp
- Heritage School Rehabilitation by DRRT
The Dwaraknath Reddy Ramanarpanam Trust (DRRT), under the dynamic leadership Ms Anita Reddy, undertook the rehabilitation of the 1845 U-shaped Heritage Primary School building during the first half of 2006. The renovated building was formally reopened on 2006 September 15, the birthday of Bharata Ratna (Jewel of India, the highest civilian award in India) Mokshagundam Vishveshwariah. The quality of restoration is excellent. Ms Reddy and her team deserve high praise for their work.
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- Filing the World Bank Funding Application
On 2006:NO:21, Tuesday, an application for funding of action programs in Kandavara was filed with the World Bank . On 2007:FE:10, Saturday, we learned that we were not successful. It appears as though World Bank received a very large number of applications and ours simply did not meet their criteria to the satisfaction of the evaluation group. C’est la vie, such is life.
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- Local Leadership for Transformation
In December/January 2006/7, the local elders and youth, organized themselves into a self-help body comprising two entities, for convenience, one for the elders and one for the youth. The two entities are called, Kandavara Development Committee (KDC) and Kandavara Task Force (KTF), respectively. Both bodies are broad based, and reflect the diversity in Kandavara. In effect, these people are directly involved in all activities undertaken in Kandavara, regardless of who takes the initiative from outside in conceiving and executing a project. The names of people belonging to the two entities are listed under About Us on this website.
All those who are interested in participating in the transformation of Kandavara are requested to work through the local leadership embodied in KDC and KTF. The contact person is Mr. Chandrashekara N. Kandavara or Chandru for short. Chandru’s email address is: chandru_anj@rediffmail.com.
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- Identification of Needs in Kandavara
Meetings of elder leaders, youth leaders, and public-at-large led to the listing of needs as perceived by them. Representatives from both The XVIII Horse and Project Kandwar attended the meetings, facilitated flow of ideas, and prepared minutes of the meetings. The needs have become the core of the Business Plan that is under preparation.
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- Creating the Canadia Trust for Educational Purposes
In order to enable the creation of a set of educational institutions to meet the needs of people in the Kandavara catchment area, a charitable trust has been established. It is called the Canadia Trust, Canadia being a combination of Canada and India. In January 2007, the Trust Deed was registered in Chikballapur/Kandavara. The next step is to secure tax status under 12.3.a of The Charitable Trust (Regulations) Act, 2006.
Mr. H. R. Seetharam, a successful senior lawyer in Chikballapur, Mr. H. R. Ananthakeishnamurthy, a successful senior lawyer in Bangalore, Mr. D. Devaraj, a successful chartered accountant in Bangalore, and Mr. Chikveerappa, a law partner of Mr. H. R. Seetharam, directly assisted in the preparation and registration of the Trust Deed. All of us are thankful to them for providing pro bono expert assistance.
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- Rainwater Harvesting on the Heritage Primary School
Dr. G. N. Srinivasa Reddy, Vice-President, BAIF-K, Tumkur, Karnataka, asked for a submission of proposal to undertake the installation of rainwater harvesting technology on the recently rehabilitated 1845 Heritage school building. The proposal was prepared by Mr. Manjunath Thimmapur of The XVIII Horse and duly submitted to Mr. Dyasa, the person-in-charge.
After examining the present commitments of BAIF-K for rainwater harvesting in the District of Tumkur, Mr. Dyasa informed us that at this time they were not able to undertake projects outside the District of Tumkur.
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- Improving the Dilapidated Dwelling Units
Mr. K. C. Shivashankar, the Commissioner, Karnataka Slum Clearance Board, and Mr. Subir Hari Singh, the Principal Secretary, Housing, both with the State of Karnataka, initiated steps to look into the feasibility of providing adequate housing for the poorest of the poor.
Mr. B. G. Diwakar, the Executive Engineer and Mr. Gopalakrishna, the Assistant Engineer, visited the site on 2007:JA:09, Tuesday, with NMK. Both initiated a series of steps to look into the feasibility of implementing the Slum Board’s Integrated Development program in Kandavara within the next six months. Seven youth members of the KTF conducted house to house survey and developed the List of Beneficiaries who met the Slum Board’s criteria. The Slum Board submitted the Application for funding by the Federal Government in Delhi.
On 2007 March 3, Saturday, the Slum Board was informed that out of 735 Applications, only 3 were approved by the Federal Government. Mr. Gopalakrishna, the engineer with the Slum Board, in his conversation with Mr. Srikanth of The XVIII Horse Foundation, speculated that the dwelling units in Kandavara might have been seen as “too good” to be treated as slum dwellings by the criteria of the Federal Government. Dilapidated dwelling, evidently, is in the eye of the beholder in a poor country where approximately 40 percent of people are classified as living Below Poverty Line (BPL) by their own standards.
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- Sai Maa Foundation Grant of Pills and their Distribution to the Needy
Mr. Ravi Menon of the Sai Maa Ashram, about 11 km south of Kandavara, made available to the members of the Kandavara Task Force (KTF), a significant number of bottles of pills to be distributed to the needy. On 2007 February 25, Sunday, Messrs Chandru Kandavara and Naveenchand Kandavara, of KTF, distributed the pills to the needy. The pills consisted of deworming tablets, multi vitamin tablets, and ayurvedic general health tablets.
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- Debris Removal from Sewer Gutters
On 2007 February 18, Sunday, members of KDC, KTF, and several people living in Kandavara, cleared the debris blocking the open sewer gutters in the settlement. About 60 people, in all, took part in the day-long clearing work. It is not easy to communicate the importance of this simple work. Open stagnant sewer gutters are breeding ground for mosquitoes and are odour causing cess pools. The people of the settlement secured a fair amount of coverage in the newspapers for their volunteer efforts.
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- Profiles of Three Poorest of the Poor Families
On 2006:DE:25, Monday, Srikanth from The XVIII Horse and NMK went to Kandavara to speak to three poor families who live in the Dalit (ex-untouchables) neighbourhood. The meeting with the three women who spoke for their respective families went well and we got all the required data for the “case studies” in our Business Plan. The spirit of Christmas somehow appeared to have passed by these families assuming that any of them knew that it was Christmas Day, 2006.
On 2006:DE:26, Tuesday, NMK completed the profiles under the title: Three Profiles, One Story or Three Stories, One Theme”. Ms Kathy Brankley of Sudbury who is a Health Planner by profession suggested some improvements to the profiles and all of them were incorporated. This part of the Business Plan is complete for critique by others.
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- The K. V. Educational Trust NSS Comprehensive Clean Up Camp
The K. V. Educational Trust of Chikballapur conducted a ten day long National Service Scheme (NSS) Camp in Kandavara to remove garbage and refuse from all public spaces and deposit them at the selected Land Fill site. The Camp ran for ten (10) days from 2007 March 30, Friday, through 2007 April 8, Sunday.
The clean up Camp was initiated by Mr. Narayanaswamy N. Kamarathi of the Kandavara Development Committee (KDC) in partnership with Mr. Venkatram, a resident of Kandavara. Mr. Murali S. Kandavara from the Kandavara Task Force (KTF) became the on-site day-today co-ordinator of the NSS Camp in addition to participating fully in the clean up work.
Eighty (80) students from the nearby school administered by KV Trust, ten (10) elders from the KV Trust, ten (10) elders from the KDC and ten (10) youth from the KTF, participated in the actual clean up work. Equipment for the work was secured by KV Trust. The students were accommodated in the two Heritage Primary School buildings. Several guests from surrounding villages came to see the work and speak to the students.
The limited budget for the Camp was inadequate to sustain the ten day long effort. Several families in Kandavara contributed food for the volunteers. The KTF contributed ten (10) kg of rice as part of the total community contribution.
The collective cooperative effort led to the clean up of virtually all the streets, clearing of sewage and storm water gutters, cleaning of the Primary School compound, and the Hospital Building. It is no overstatement to say that the clean up work represents the first time the entire settlement/village of Kandavara has been cleaned up in living memory, if not in its history. Also, the participation of the entire settlement in the effort symbolizes a self-directed step in the direction of environmental awareness.
KV Educational Trust, the organizers of the clean up effort, was so satisfied with the help received from the local people in general and the KDC/KTF members in particular that they promised to come back next year, if needed.
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