India, with all its vastness, richness, cultural vibrancy, geographical varieties, famed democratic living, bears the brunt of evils those have become a part of living here, over the age.

The evils that haunt the country are caste system, racial differences, linguistic divide, corruption, bureaucracy, crime against women, the ever growing rich-poor differences, communal violence, notoriety of terrorism, unhygienic living, child labour, female feticide, unemployment and most importantly people driven to terrorist and anti-national activities due to lack of opportunities.

Amidst all these happening, an average Indian is getting more aware of the ill-effects of these evils, and he actually acknowledges that there is only one solution to all of these. The solution is educating each and every child of the land, and that basic education will ensure at least the coming generations will live in harmony and bring glory to the country.

Education is that basic commodity which is very important order of the day today and is unattainable to many children. In spite of free offer and much effort by the Governments, we have many children who are dragged out of the school. Whenever we see children around the traffic signals in cities begging for money/food or selling ear buds/ balloons, one’s heart boils and tears with the question where the country is heading. The children who are offered jobs at hotels as plate cleaners and in mechanic shops as assistants, etc are fast growing into adolescent with no particular job in hands and are vulnerable to lucrative business of suicide bombings.

Such a danger on our hands, we are dreaming slowly of making India a super power. Is that possible with half of its population not knowing how to read and write? Is the education offered in the Government schools of good quality that helps realize the goal of India rising? Instead of asking just the questions, Dhwani tries to find answers to them as well.

With a dream of seeing educated India, crime free India, literate India, self sustained India, Dhwani, a raising voice, works towards empowering schools to provide quality education, being magnetic to the children as well.

A child getting quality education will be an asset to the nation, and will generate the flame of knowledge to many more. It flows continuous. Dhwani believes in sharing of knowledge, time, energy, effort and material for such divine task.

We invite everyone to take part in the drive and help us help India better.

Schools identified for the purpose:

1. Maruthi Primary School, near Kanakapura Road, Bangalore.
2. Govt. Primary school, Gangapura, near Kolar.

Events to be organised:

1. Distribution of note books, stationery, uniforms
2. Organising awareness camps on hygienic environs
3. Organising free health checkup camps for the children
4. Conducting classes on various chapters, including computer basics, spoken English, crafts, arts etc
5. Conducting seminars, debates, and sports and acknowledging the students of their talents and what they can be to the society
6. Planting saplings around the school premises and educating the children to adopt a close to environment life.

You are free to add and help us implement more points to the events to be conducted.

What you can do to turn the dream into reality:

1. Donate generously to team Dhwani. Visit Dhwani site at http://teamdhwani.blogspot.com/ or drop in a mail to dhwani dot org at gmail dot com for more details.
2. Be a member volunteer of Dhwani and take part in all of the events organised.
3. Be a moral support to the school management by devoting time towards executing the mentioned programmes.

Team Dhwani.

Tree plantation Jadigenahalli
Date:June1st 2008
Participants:Akshata,AlbertAnand,Anitha,Amogh,
Balakrishna,Bilvashree,Chaitra,ChetanChitra,
Levin,Nataraj,Nimmi,Phaniraj,Madhusudhan,Manjula
Rethesh,Ramesh,Raghu,Rethesh,Sreelakshmi,Shrikanth,Sushma,Sudarshan,
Organisers:Prakash & sunanda, Shivabasaiah &Ratna
Trees planted-200
Morning was pleasant, and the breeze was special…Sun rose to a perfect harmony as the volunteers moved towards Hosakote. Some reached early, some late. Some came prepared, and some didn’t. However, it didn’t dither them from doing their bit to address the major problem of the planet today, the global warming.

The barren and neglected land that was selected for sapling plantation programme was on the outskirts of a village called Jadigena halli, some 7KMs off Hosakote. The saplings were bought by Dhwani for a reasonable price at the white field forest department nursery. The saplings varied from floral to fashionable to the fruiting ones. The variety also ranged from plants that would eventually grow to a few feet to the ones those grow to a few meters. The varied saplings were selected that added to some 200 in numbers.

The Singapore cherries, people tree, the guava, Jack fruits, flowering plants, kadamba plants and so on.

As we entered the lands where the plantation had to happen, we observed some pits graved by a JCB machine a few days ago. The first task cut out for us was to fill these huge pits at least by 50% to make our saplings sit quiet in there. And we began the day of plantings by planting a people tree.

A few villagers were all geared up to accompany the city lads in this task unusual. With the able guidance of experienced people in our team, and the village guys as well, within 2 hours we could cover a vast area that was empty earlier with the plants that we carried.

Dhwani team members participated in the drive with utmost interest and with a sensational spirit that was infective. Villagers were happy to see us indulge in the country activity and were beaming with huge smiles. They were pretty impressed, and were committed to growing the plants to make them trees in the near future.

The village had a brand new temple that was inaugurated a couple of weeks before our visit. It is a very big and a beautiful temple of Karagadamma devi. Our next halt was at the temple, and the remaining 50 and odd plants were to be planted around here. The villagers too joined hands making our jobs easier and saving a lot of time. Here we planted fruiting sapling in abundance, with a few flowering and a few kadamba plants.

The enthusiastic 30+ volunteers of Dhwani, if not anything else, were successful in inspiring a whole village to maintain the forest around them, and grow more trees.

A vole of satisfaction ruled over all the faces of those volunteered that day. After getting freshened up at a well nearby, the team headed back to the temple, took part in a special pooja of the Goddess and had prasada with contention.

A sumptuous “ragi mudde oota” was waiting for all the tired souls that day at a neighbouring house. All relished the food with brim thankfulness.
Before ending the note on our first ever plantation drive, I’d like to thank all those who made the programme a grand success; the volunteers especially took their time off to present themselves with a satisfaction of being a part of a social awareness community. The programme was organised and arranged by Swapna in association with Madhu, special thanks to the both of them. Next to the villagers who were supporting us right from the beginning till the very end to make it a startling beginning of the plantation season for Dhwani.

Last and not the least the two families those were responsible for the programme themselves, one the family of Mrs. & Mr. Prakash who, being a village chieftain permitted us to plant in the land belonging to him, as well as around the temple. He not only permitted us to go ahead, but also stood there instructing us, guiding us to go in a right direction.

Another family that stood as a backbone for the whole event, without whom we couldn’t have even dreamt of being there here are Mrs. and Mr. Shivabasaiah Badnimath. They also arranged for the sumptuous food that we relished later in the evening.

This was a grand new beginning of a fresh new era in Dhwani’s existence.

We hope and wish that we be a cause and part of hundreds of such events and occasions further in the coming days.

With warm regards,
Srikanth.