Limkheda gets a "Thumbs Up!"

AIM for Seva - Adivasi Kumar Chaatraalaya, Dudhiya (Sashta)

Limkheda, Dahod District, Gujarat

Land Donors:

Lakhidas Patel

Pratapbhai Dangi

Supported by: Houston Indian community, USA

Date inaugurated: 15^th June 2006

No. of students: 27

Villages covered: 25

Average Monthly Family Income: Rs. 500

School attended: Sashta Government School

The Adivasi Kumar Chaatraalaya is currently operating from a temporary shelter in the tribal village of Sashta in Gujarat.  Sashta is 5 kms away from Limkheda town and 45 kms from Godhara.  The 27 students currently at the student home mainly belong to Adivasi families of the Bhil communities from villages in and around Sashta.

Bhils are a scheduled tribe with their own leadership, laws and customs.  They are a homogenous ancient ethnic group where they face the challenge of living in a hostile environment ravaged by drought and outbreaks of diseases. Poor infrastructure and lack of academic institutions further aggravate their situation.  They mainly work as peasant farmers, field laborers, and village watchmen, where often they have to put in eighth to ten hours of hard labor for a mere pittance of Rs. 20 to 25 per day.

Educationally, these Adivasis are far behind the national mainstream and have recently started sending their children to school with a lot of reluctance.  Being poor and illiterate they have been easy prey to the greedy and exploitative tactics of the rich landlords and moneylenders.

The children come from very backward areas, their parents are mostly laborers living below the poverty line.  They are of the age group 7 to 12 years, studying in Std. II to VII. They are taught Yoga in addition to academics.  This keeps their body fit. They also take part in indoor and outdoor games.  This is a Study Room of the Students. We provide them daily tuition by a trained teacher.  They attend the “Sandhya Gurukulam “ – evening private tuitions.  These students when they joined the Student Home were not even in a position to even count up to 100. But today, they can not only read and write in English , they can speak in English. This is the result of the evening tuitions that are conducted regularly by a dedicated trained teacher.  There is a Kitchen and Dinning Hall. Students take lunch and dinner as per our tradition. We provide them food with vitamins, proteins and nutrition.

Students do their work by themselves only. They also help in gardening and cleaning the Chaatraalaya.

We also celebrate our different Festivals in the Chaatralaya, like on Ganesh Chaturthi we perform “Ganesh Yagna“.  Sometimes we also take them to “Arsha Vidyalaya”, Godhara, for entertainment and we take them to visit different places near by Godhara.  During this Diwali, we took them to Arsha Vidyalaya.  They have enjoyed with different Cartoon movies, Educational cartoon CDs etc. On that day a packet of crackers and Sweet was given to them for their Home

The children are also given special classes in Samskrita Sambhashanam  (Conversational Samskrit).  Every year they also give Sanskrit exam which is conducted Samskrita Bharati, Delhi.

The Chaatraalaya runs under the guidance of Swamini Spashtatmananda, who takes care of students wholeheartedly like a Mother. She was instrumental in visiting all the tribal and backward areas near Sashta and admitting the needy students into the student home. She teaches the children the values of life and gives them samskaras to become a complete human being.