A Hand By KEN Manipur To Ekal Vidyalaya Supplementing Primary Education In Manipur

KEN *

R to L - Vinod Jhunjhunwala (Ekal President), Ranjani Saigal (Ekal Executive Director), KEN members (Lakshmikant Laikangbam, Ajit Thokchom, Kelvin Ashem) at Ekal’s Fund raising event at “Hyatt Regency, Boston”

BOSTON (February-24-2014) : Knowledge Exchange Network(KEN) Manipur members from USA (Lakshmikant Laikangbam, Ajit Thokchom, Kelvin Ashem) attended Ekal’s annual Fund Raising event at “Hyatt Regency, Boston, MA USA” on February 22, 2014. During the event, KEN members interacted with several high profile Ekal Vidyalaya (EV) members including Vinod Jhunjhunwala ( President), Ranjani Saigal (Executive Director).They discussed how KEN and EKAL can work together to spread awareness of the noble work done by EV for the people of Manipur in promoting basic primary education in developing and underdeveloped remote areas of the state. EV operates more than 400 schools reaching 12000 children in Manipur.

EV has requested KEN volunteers in and around the world to help EV succeed in its mission and endeavors in Manipur. On behalf of KEN Lakshmikant Laikangbam from the USA had worked in raising funds for EV enough to run 10 schools (around 300 students) for an entire year.

Further as part of the ongoing engagement, based on request from KEN and EV, Shri Premchandra Okram, a retired teacher from Thoubal had visited few EV schools in Thoubal district and reported factual information about the ground situation to EV’s management along with pictures of schools, teachers and students.

Premchandra Okram (in black jacket) visited Ekal schools in Thoubal District, Manipur.

This initiative was highly appreciated in the Fund Raising event at Boston and EV has requested Shri Premchandra Okram, as a part of EV and KEN collaboration effort, to continue visiting EV schools in other districts of Manipur and provide the feedback to ensure the actual benefits of the program reach to those intended for.

EV, Head Quartered in USA, is a movement to bring about holistic development in remote villages of India and Nepal by imparting functional education consisting of literacy, healthcare, economic development and empowerment education.

An Ekal school in Thoubal District, Manipur

At the moment they run their unique schools in 52,000 villages in all states of India and Nepal working for nearly 1.5 million children. Their method focuses on choosing a youth from the area and training them to be teachers.

Their strong volunteer pool allows us to run the schools at the low cost of just a $1/day. Thus for $365 a year we educate about 30-40 kids which amounts to about $10/child/year. To learn more about Ekal Vidyalaya, please check out the links below. http://www.ekal.org ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5OgaUvM_7k

KEN is a non-political and non-profit association of people of Manipuri origin and their friends living in different parts of the world with varied professional backgrounds, experiences, skills and expertise.

An Ekal school in Thoubal District, Manipur.

With the world has become a global village and has witnessed an IT boom during the last two decades, many people of Manipur origin are now found working in every nook and corner of the world; they are the main constituents of KEN.

The mission for KEN is to share and direct these global knowledge, skills, incomes and expertise to Manipur for her all round development and progress which will help to build a strong brand image of the state enhancing confidence among the public and investors which at the moment is in a challenging state in Manipur.