Tribal Youth Empowerment (TYE) Project

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Tribal Youth Empowerement (TYE) Project Completion & Financial Report

  • Project successfully completed on time, as scheduled.
  • Exceeded our fundraising target in 18 days.
  • 100% of funds transferred from North America spent on the project.
  • Project visited and validated by KHNA volunteers.
  • Detailed Project & Financial report is presented below

For the last three years, Kerala Hindus of North America has facilitated North American Youth to serve in Attapady, in collaboration with Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission (SVMM) and Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, along the Kerala state and Tamil Nadu state border.

Attappady is a remote area in the mountainous region of Kerala, pressed up against the Tamil Nadu border, and features a mosaic of different microclimates and topologies. The area is also known for having a low HDI when compared to the rest of Kerala, with many of the inhabitants living in poverty. Cholera, sickle cell anemia, chronic alcoholism, rampant mental illness and various other disorders plague the tribal populations. The historic lack of infrastructure only serves to exacerbate the problem, and as such, little progress has been made in the region while the rest of Kerala progressed. Implementation of long term solutions addressing the underlying problems facing the tribal peoples of the area is required, but can only be achieved through exhaustive social work, and the involvement of organizations willing to supplement the progress being made locally.

Based on our 2017 Kerala Hindus of North America (KHNA) Youth Intern, Rohan Harikumar’s report that called for engaging the youth in these tribal areas in Information Technology, we fund raised, installed and commissioned a Computer Centre in the tribal village of Sholayur, near Attapady. This centre is now called the “Vivekananda Jana Sevana Kendram”

Sholayur is located bout 25 Kms into the tropical forests, from Agali/Attapady. It is a remote tribal centre and is surrounded by about 20 tribal hamlets. The people from these villages have to reach Agali for computer education and for internet access for accessing online Government Services.

With help of generous donors in Canada and USA, we raised CAD $6894, exceeding our target of CAD $6000 on GoFundMe. Click here to view the GoFundMe fundraising status/record. The fundraising was completed in about 20 days on June 6th 2018. With exception of 3% charges ($176) incurred as fees to GoFundMe, all of the remaining  funds (CAD $6800) amounting to equivalent of INR 341,932 was transferred to Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission by Wire Transfer, on June 23rd 2018. View record of Wire Transfer from CIBC Bank

The following equipment was purchased on 22nd June 2018 from M/S Supreme Computers,Kottayam and shipped to Sholayur on June 26th 2018 –

  • 4 Acer Desktop Computers with Intel Core i3 processors, 1TB HDD, 8GB RAM & wireless LAN cards
  • Requisite suite of Microsoft Software
  • HP Office Jet 2676 printer/scanner
  • 4 Uninterrupted Power Supply units.
  • Click here to view cost & invoice for above equipment from supplier.

During this time SVMM rented a facility in Sholayur, to host this computer centre under the auspices of “Vivekananda Jana Sevana Kendram” i.e Vivekananda Public Service Centre.

Required furniture for the computer centre was also purchased and setup. Click here to view invoices for purchase of furniture – Invoice #1   & Invoice #2

The centre is centrally located in Sholayur Panchayat and accessible to the Tribal communities in this area. Also to help operate, coordinate the programs at the centre and instruct students, SVMM hired –

  • a centre coordinator
  • a qualified computer instructor

While our KHNA Youth interns onsite helped SVMM with setup of the centre, the computers were installed and commissioned by visiting KHNA sevaks (volunteers) and the local staff there.

The Vivekananda Jana Sevana Kendram will provide –

  • Computer education courses
  • Career orientation.
  • Coaching classes for Public Service Examinations
  • Facility for ONLINE applications for admission to schools, colleges & jobs.

Project Financial report 

The centre and the facility will be managed by Swami Vivekananda Medical Mission, under its community development program and part of the funds raised has been budgeted for operational costs for the rest of the year

The above snapshot summarizes

  • the funds raised via GoFundMe & offline donations, funds transferred to SVMM
  • the capital expenses incurred for startup of the Centre.
  • the operational expenses for the year ending June 2019

The total expenses for the Centre is forecasted at INR 402,191. This creates a deficit for the centre to the tune of INR 60,259, given that we raised only INR 341,932. SVMM hopes to bridge deficit via funding from other possible sources, over the year.

Inauguration of Vivekananda Jana Sevana Kendram

The centre was inaugurated on July 3rd 2018 at 10am. A inauguration ceremony was organized by SVMM and presided over by the leaders of the local Panchayat, community elders, Dr Narayanan of SVMM, community members and visiting Sevaks/Volunteers of KHNA (Vinod Varapravan & Rajendran Thalappath) .

About 20 tribal youth signed up for computer learning programs on the inaugural day itself.

All of the attendees and speakers expressed their gratitude to KHNA and KHNA youth who made this centre possible for he benefit of its youth and others. Noting that this project was completed on-time within 2 months, the local leaders of the Panchayat applauded KHNA and SVMM for this achievement, while mentioning this is something their Panchayat has been wanting to do for many years, without success. They also expressed appreciation for the donors and the fact they cared for the welfare of tribal youth in a very remote area of Kerala. The Tribal community members also expressed their happiness in hosting KHNA youth Interns, every year and the bonds the youth have developed with them and their children.

KHNA Youth Interns 2018, Shefali Panicker & Anjana Rajendran were serving their internship during this time, also attended the inauguration event. They also helped out at this event with logistics, planning and going from village to village on foot inviting people to this event.

To view pictures of this event and the cente, please Click Here

Currently, the computer learning programs are in progress and the staff are looking at other youth development programs that can be run locally or via computer video conferencing facilities.

On behalf of KHNA & Rohan Harikumar KHNA Youth Intern we would like to express our gratitude to all of our donors who made this happen and contributed to making a difference in the lives of our tribal brethren in Attapady.

We encourage all of our donors and supporters to visit Sholayur , SVMM to see this project for yourself and inspire our workers on the ground. To arrange for a visit or to get additional information or seek clarifications on this project, CONTACT US