My Work with SCEAD Foundation Bangalore

My Interview with Daniel

Siju Thomas Daniel, Founder, SCEAD Foundation

Daniel has been an inspiration to the many volunteers who have been lucky enough to work under him.

Tarshish Kurien with Daniel

He has been a visionary from the beginning. The roots of social work began to grow from the early age of 17 when he and his fellow college mates took turns to work with a government school named Banjara Palya on the outskirts of Bangalore, often bunking classes. They drew up a schedule: with a fixed timetable of who would bunk when in order to seamlessly visit the school and teach the underprivileged children and reinforce the importance of education.

In a country such as India which has remained firmly behind other developed nations in spite of a huge wealth of natural resources and opportunities to innovate, Daniel’s SCEAD is paving the way for other such NGOs to continue their work and realise the dream of full literacy. India lags behind other countries so much that the dream of a 100% literate country has not yet been realised even a decade into the 21^st century.

I managed to schedule an interview with Daniel to talk about the NGO and about its humble beginnings.

WHY DID YOU START SCEAD FOUNDATION?

“SCEAD started in 1998 when I was still a college student. The focus is on children who are not properly educated and who cannot alleviate their suffering and who do not even realise that their plight could be better. I initially began with my classmates in Banjara Palya School.

We had a timetable where each one of us would bunk college once in a week and go to the school. For example, on Mondays I would go, on Wednesdays was my friend’s turn, and on Saturday all of us would go together and campaign for the school.

Slowly they developed this willingness to serve and focused more on child education. In Daniel’s words, ‘The main aim was to get these kids from toil back to education.’

SCEAD has been able to execute projects on a larger scale than it did back in 1998 and has come a long way from a dream in the minds of a couple of college kids.

It has been an amazing experience working with SCEAD and also a great pleasure to meet a jovial and charismatic man such as Siju Thomas Daniel

Tarshish Kurien

Christ University Bangalore

Volunteers from St Joseph commerce college Bangalore India

Date: May 18, 2011 onwards Venue: Govt school /SCEAD STUDIO N.S.Palya 2 nd stage B.T.M layout 2ndstage Bannerghatta road The first day of our internship at the SCEAD foundation Mr.Daniel, to whom we introduced ourselves. We were six of us in total. Namely Priyanka, Shrooti, Manu, Anant, Siddharth and myself Koushik. Mr. Daniel first took us to visit Green Pastures, a school which was under his project. There were 5 children there who were as happy 2 meet us, as us who were happy to meet them. After a brief introduction of ourselves’ and the children Priyanka stayed at the school with the 5 chiildren, Naveen, Lohit, Tirumal, Darshan and Joshina. After coming out of Green Pastures the other five of us went to a government school, the Patel high school which is another school part of Mr. Daniel’s project. At the school we met the principal and after that talked to Mr.Harish who was teaching maths for the students’ of class 10 as a special coaching class.

Government Kannada & Tamil School Model Primary School,

Project Name - Adopt a School (15th February 2011 onward) Government Kannada & Tamil School Model Primary School , Cleveland Town Robertson Road (Frazer town) Bangalore INDIA Accede to start up volunteering the school with hands of magic - Providing computers/funding for computer training of students. - Strengthening of Library. - Adoption of slums near the school. - Hand holding handicapped students to lead a normal life. - Training Students on the art (Dance, Music & Singing) - Physical training (Rugby, Football…..) - Providing play materials - Training student on various skills, Self Development, Personality development etc. - Providing Scholarships - Training teachers on to improve the education quality - Conducting workshops on cultural activities to the children’s - Creating awareness about importance of education to children’s -

In collaboration with the student council of St. Joseph's College of Commerce working on the Peace project.

In collaboration with the student council of St. Joseph's College of Commerce working on the Peace project.The Peace project is a program dedicated to Hiroshima-Nagasaki day on 9th of August to remember the tragic effect of nuclear weapon. It’s a speech of peace all over the world provided by our volunteers and dignitaries. Also we will be organizing a signature campaign on this day in which the students will be signing in support of this campaign.

Search This Blog