Arpan logo   "If you want to lift yourself up,
lift up someone else."
-Booker T. Washington
   
    Parivaar Education Society
Cause: Education and total rehabilitation of young destitute children.

Profile: Parivaar was started by an IIT Kharagpur and IIM Calcutta alumnus Shri
Vinayak Lohani, who, inspired by spiritual and humanistic ideals of Sri Ramakrishna
and Swami Vivekananda, decided to dedicate his life for 'Sarvabhuta Seva' (service
of all especially the distressed), immediately after passing out of IIM in 2003.
Starting with just 3 children in a small rented building with almost no financial
resources, there are currently 207 children who have found a new Home,

  Family and Future at Parivaar. Parivaar Ashram at Bakhrahat, about 30 Km from Kolkata city is spread over 3 acres
(about 150,000 sq. ft) of land.

The mission is to change lives of home-less, family-less children by permanent rehabilitation in a ‘loving and caring family’
environment and through benefits of long-term formal education, creating the platform on which children will grow into
self-fulfilling and socially responsible individuals. The category of children Parivaar works with need a tremendously loving and
caring environment. Each child at Parivaar is just like how a child would be in his own family and will continue to be in and under
Parivaar's care till he/she comes up and makes good in life. Thus it needs a minimum commitment of 15 to 18 years for each child.

A child before being admitted into Parivaar may have been an destitute child, but after being admitted into Parivaar, the child is
no more so. Thus, the first thing done is to de-tag and de-label this unhappy epithet of ‘homeless child’. As the children before
being admitted to Parivaar have had no exposure to education, they have to be started right from the alphabet and numerals level.
Because of this, the first year is spent in bridging this gap through Fast Learning. Once that is done the child can be admitted into
a class that corresponds to his/her age. For example a 10 year old child after the "One-Year Fast Learning" program can be
straight admitted to either Class 4 or 5.
   
 

Infrastructure: Parivaar has been continuously developing Infrastructure after purchasing land at Village Barkalikapur, 30 Km
from Kolkata city. Some of the recent developments are,

  • Three Bal Sadans (each 1030 sq. ft. in area) having a Living Hall, Study Hall, Caretaker’s room, store, bathrooms and
    toilets
  • 7000 Sq. Ft Residential Block for children: This new Bal-Sadan block is now providing accommodation to 100 children.
    It is divided into 8 halls (4 Study halls and 4 Bed-halls) and has 32 toilets / bathrooms within it
  • Annapurna Bhavan (1825 sq. ft. in area ). It is composed of spacious dinning arena for more than 200 diners, Kitchen
    arena, and Kitchen & accessories store
  • Computer Laboratory: The area of this Hall is 1800 sq. ft. 20 PCs in good condition were donated by Cognizant technology
    Solutions and 10 machines by Tata Consultancy Services
 

Arpan's Participation:

  • Initial target is to provide steady stream of funds on monthly basis. Four families committing dollar a day totaling
    $120 per month. (Approx. Rs. 5,000 per month)
  • In the second phase adopt a center/s and/or children and provide ongoing support
  • Anand is, and will continue to be in touch with Vinayak Lohani and finalize the details of the second phase
  • Encourage all the contributors of ARPAN to visit any facility in India. The trip can be planned in Advance from USA

For more details about Parivaar Education Society and its projects, please Click here.

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