The power to change

Vanasuma - The forest flower.

This is the real life story about how just one person's compassion towards an underprivileged child can inspire a community to form a mini charitable trust to transform the lives of many street children into school going children for ver 20 years...you can contribute donations to Vanasuma.


Here goes the story.......

It was a warm morning in May 1992 in Bangalore.......... A lady was on her way to her work just happened to see a little girl, walking bare feet - looking hungry, clutching a slate and dressed in oversized, worm out clothes rushing towards her school located near by her slum, where she lived with her parents. It is a normal sight in that area of Bangalore, which could have escaped the attention of anyone walking in that area. But this particular lady walking towards her work place could not take her gaze away from that little girl with sparkling eyes. The little girl, she thought, looked like a beautiful wild flower in the forest.

The lady stopped the little girl and asked her name and the little girl answered "Ammu". The lady didn't stop her conversation there, she asked her whether she had anything to eat that morning. The answer from Ammu was a simple NO and in fact she had had noting much to eat at home even the night before.

This incident moved the lady so much that, she opened her lunch box and gave it to Ammu and Ammu was hesitant at first and looked at the lady with her apprehensive eyes... But the lady encouraged Ammu to eat the breakfast packed in that lunch box. Ammu ate the break from that lunch box at one go and wiped her lips and ran towards the school and vanished from the sight of the lady.

The next day the lady went to the same spot and waited for Ammu, but Ammu didn't turn up on that day and the lady felt sad and left to her work place. The lady however didn't give up and went again to the same spot and waited for the girl and after waiting for little while she was not sure whether Ammu will turn up that day too.  The lady brightened up when she saw Ammu walking toward her. The lady hugged that child and gave her lunch box to the Ammu to eat and took a promise from her that she would return the next day and promised her that she will give her breakfast before she went to school. 

The seed of 'Vanasuma'  a charitable trust was planted on that day, for the welfare of the less privileged  children. The lady whose compassion made this possible is - Lalitha Jayasheelan, the founder trustee of Vanasuma.

The name 'Vanasuma' also aptly translates the feeling of Lalitha on the first day when she saw Ammu. In Sanskrit 'Vana' means Forest and 'Suma' means Flower!

Thereafter Lalitha's friends joined her and bought buns to distribute to the children of the school to which Amma went. This substantially improved the attendance of the slum children to the school. Vanasuma became synonymous with feeding the slum children to encourage them to attend school.

A miracle happened some time during 2004-05. The ISKON Foundation visited the school and launched the 'akshaya patra' scheme to provide hygienic and healthy mid- day meals to all children of the school......from that day the dream of Lalitha to feed slum children to encourage them to attend school took a huge dimension. Not only this school, but almost all the schools, where slum children attend the school are provided with this food. Vanasuma believes that the seed they sowed in 1992 became huge tree feeding thousands of slum school children.

Once the mission of Vanasuma of feeding the slum school children was fulfilled by Devine intervention, Lalitha and the trustees of Vanasuma thought about launching one more project for the slum children. They thought, let us move from food to educating the street children. 

Thus the new project - Evening school for less privileged children was born under the umbrella of Vanasuma. The school runs in a makeshift place, which provides silent atmosphere, tables and chairs, computers for children to sit and study in the evening. This has provided an impetus to the next step in the welfare of less privileged children, namely, education.

Currently, Vanasuma runs this school and takes care of less privileged children to come and learn the basic education and also provides space for slum children going to school for their reading and study. The movement to free street children is on.....

Note:Thanks for reading this story.
It will immensely help me in improving my writing, if you share your ideas and thoughts  and suggestions about the story and my writing. You may also suggest topics  for my writing. Please feel free to contact me on my email  for all your comments and suggestions:  
vdharmraj@ramaavenkatesh.com.
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