Enabling the Underprivileged for Sustainable Development
It is said that, presence of a barefoot child either in grimy or no cloth and suffering from malnutrition, inadequate healthcare facilities and impoverish education is the simplest evidence to condemn the larger society he or she lives in. Moreover, presence of such a child in our society is nothing but a million defeats not only for the society but for the mankind itself.
‘Santiniketan Chhayapath Social Welfare Society,’ commonly known as ‘Chhayapath’ is a non-government non-profit organisation that started journey couple of years ago with a mission to uplift the life and livelihood of the underprivileged section of the society, especially of the children mainly in the district of Birbhum of the state of West Bengal in India.
The journey begins few years ago in an informal way by a local martial art coach, Buddhiswar Mondal who was then in his late twenties. By the time Buddhiswar was already a well-known figure in the district of Birbhum and in few other adjacent districts not only for his skills, talent and achievements in the field of martial arts but also for his social welfare initiatives and activities. It requires a special mention that all the social welfare initiatives and regular activities of Buddhiswar were driven mostly by him as an individual who was never dependent on others for any help. Though few benevolent individuals came forward in his support with their limited resources. Those selfless, tireless and most importantly solitary efforts of Buddhiswar have also attracted media attentions.
Within a couple of years Shampa Burman Basu another social welfare enthusiast with academic background in the subjects of social welfare from Kolkata joined hands with him. Shampa used to travel a few hundreds of kilometers from Kolkata to the various remote villages of Birbhum almost in every week on behalf of some other social welfare organisations where Buddhiswar was also attached with, but only as a martial art coach.
In the due course, within few months both Buddhiswar and Shampa has found the initiatives and activities the organisations to which, then both were attached, are not at all adequate to bring in both significant and sustainable development in the lives and livelihood of the underprivileged dwellers of the area. Moreover, most of the decision makers of those organisations are either rarely visit or has hardly visited the villages thus mostly unaware about the pathetic ground reality.
In the above scenario both Buddhiswar and Shampa started various welfare programs at their own out of their personal resources and started working for the dwellers of the Chak Donaipur mainly for the underprivileged children of the village focusing the aspect of Sustainable Development.
Chak Donaipur is not only a remote village in the district of Birbhum but hardly any public utility and civic facilities like healthcare, education and employment opportunities are available there for the dwellers who belongs from the economically very backward section of the society.
As it requires well planned, formal and organised structure and approach to achieve any such mission that Buddhiswar and Shampa jointly had undertaken hence in the year 2023 the organisation has been registered under the Registration of Societies West Bengal Act XXVI of 1961 in the name and style of ‘Santiniketan Chhayapath Social Welfare Society’. Buddhiswar and Shampa eventually became the Founder and Co-Founder respectively.
Somnath Pal is another social welfare enthusiast and a Corporate Executive having vast experience in the fields of sales, marketing and administration joined Chhayapath as the founding President.
Chandrani Dey is a homemaker and mother of two teenagers, Rebecca Ahmed Saruardhi is a retired school teacher and Milan Mahato is a young talented painter who is also an alumni of the Govt. Art College. All of them are from nearby Sriniketan and Bolpur areas has come out from their respective comfort zones for the cause of the society and joined actively with Chhayapath either with personal materialistic resources or with their talents in their respective domains.
Surajit Ray is a former sports person who is now an entrepreneur from the town of Rishra in Hooghly district. Above all he is an excellent organizer and a person with noble heart who is always ready to devote himself for the cause of the society. Coincidentally, he came to know about the social activities of Buddhiswar from the words of mouth and subsequently visited Birbhum to know more about him and his activities out of curiosity. When he came to know about the pathetic ground reality of the children of Chak Donaipur and simultaneously about the initiatives of Chhayapath for their upliftment, he was unable to resist himself to join actively with the cause.
Chak Donaipur is located under the Bolpur-Santiniketan Panchayat Samity of the Birbhum District of West Bengal. As already mentioned, the dwellers of the village are from economically backward section thus perpetually underprivileged. Chhayapath has undertaken the mission to uplift the life and livelihood of the village dwellers especially of the children and subsequently making them economically self-dependent with proper education, hygiene and obviously with sound health. Finally, turn Chak Donaipur into a model village through sustainable development.
Activities Already Implemented:
Academics
The standard of education that the locally available only school provides is not adequate for the students to overcome the challenges they may encounter in their future lives. Considering the fact, Chhayapath has started free of cost regular tuition classes after the regular school for the children of the village. Teachers for the small kids of primary section has been engaged from the same village itself. As a result, the female dwellers with required academic background have been able to earn social respect and opportunity for a regular income. An experienced and trained teacher of a state-run school from an adjacent village has came forward to help out the secondary and higher secondary students in terms of providing them tuitions after the school hours. Chhayapath also provides support to the students in terms of providing them stationeries as per their requirements as much as possible within limited resources.
Self Defence
As the founder of the organisation himself is a trained, experienced and well known Taekwondo Coach hence Chhayapath provides the martial art training to the children of all ages especially to the girl children.
Computer Education
As no computer is available due to the constraints of affordability hence sponsored the students who has appeared for Madhyamik to get admitted with a Government supported Computer Training Institute nearby for a six months basic course.
Art, Crafts & Drawing
As one of members of Chhayapath is a trained artist and an alumni of the Govt. Art College, hence he provides formal training of art, crafts and drawings to the children.
Dancing
A tribal volunteer has been added to introduce the children with various dance forms along with emphasis to their tribal folklore.
These underprivileged children never had a scope to know what is birthday celebration and how it feels like. Chhayapath has also started celebrating birthdays of each individual child to make them feel special.
An initiative has started from the very beginning to provide nutritious food as much as possible regularly to the children. However, the resources available are inadequate to accomplish the goal. Till now the initiative is not consistent as it depends on the occasional help from the few noble hearted individuals and the personal resources available with the above-mentioned members of Chhayapath.
Mission:
- Breaking the Cycle of Hunger
- Regular health check-ups & consistent nutrition support
- Primary and Secondary education for all the children
- Implementation of Vocational Trainings & Skill Development Programmes for sustainable income
- Music, sports, life skills education to promote socio-emotional well-being
- Developing habit of reading among the children as much as possible
- Digital literacy and learning access to the children
- Environment Conservation
- Developing the village of Donaipur as an Eco-Tourism destination to generate sustainable income for the dwellers.
Immediate Plan of Action:
- Periodical Health Check-Up Camps by the practitioners of different medical fraternity for the village dwellers - (for approximately 70 households)
- Distribution of Educational Stationeries (for 40-50 Children)
- Distribution of Drawing and Craft Stationaries (for 30-40 Children)
- Distribution of Eco-Friendly Sanitary Napkins (for 60-70 female dwellers)
- Providing regular Nutrition Drinks (Chemical Free) (for 30-40 elderly person)
- Training of Sewing and Embroidery with 2 sewing machines at the initial stage as a part of Skill Development Programme for the grown-up girls and women of the village.
- Football coaching for the children both boys and girls.
- Distribution of Cloths especially winter cloths (may be old/used but should be clean and not torn) and obviously new set of cloths during the Durga Puja, the main festival of the region.
Appeal:
In the above scenario, Chhayapath earnestly request your active participation and invaluable contributions to primarily implement the aforesaid plan and also in the long run to achieve the mission.
Affiliations
Registration Certificate
Income Tax PAN Card
NGO Darpan Unique ID issued by the NITI Ayog, Government of India
Office Bearers
Somnath Pal
Hony. President
Buddiswar Mondal
Hony. Secretary
Shampa Burman
Hony. Treasurer & Coordinator
Rebecca Ahmed
Member, Executive Committee
Chandrani Dey
Member, Executive Committee
Surajit Ray
Member, Executive Committee
