As a Kid, Sandeep saw maids in his neighbourhood slogging hard for a day’s meal, while their children sat helplessly and never went to school. His mother, a teacher, was helping these kids with their studies. Her dedication made a strong impact on little Sandeep. Decades later, he made this mission of spreading education, the mission of his life by running English medium schools in villages, which doesn’t charge any kind of fees from its students.
Between managing the schools and ensuring the welfare of all the students, he also shoulders the task of raising the funds that are needed to run the five schools run by his organization Shloka Missionaries.
The bigger tragedy, according to him, is our failure to explain the kids and their parents how education can be empowering. “We figured if the element of financial burden was removed, more parents would send their children to a better school,” he said. And this was the principle that led to the formation of Shloka Missionaries in 2001.
With his corporate and academic background, people may think that raising funds for his pet project would have been a breezy task. However, he approached 200 letters to corporates and did not get even one response. “That made me think of where these companies got there money from? I thought I must also directly approach the common people. And in Mumbai, a train is the only public place where people give you attention,” he said.
Thus, Professor Desai started raising funds for constructing these schools by “begging” on Mumbai’s local trains. Every day, he valiantly conquered mounds of crowds in the trains to promote the notion of VIDYA DAAN. However, the task seems insurmountable. People insulted him, called him names and dictated him as phoney. Very few truly believed and trusted that this man would go and build a school for slum kids. It took him five years of train journeys to be able to make the first school run by the Mission in Goregaon. With some acknowledgement of his work and the internet revolution, he is now raising the funds on platforms like Crowdera.
The school was accessible to kids from several slums nearby. The task did not end here, it had only just begun. The daily expenses of the school and funds for supplies required by the students were yet to come. This meant that the daily train excursions would continue for Professor Desai even after the school building had been funded.
Source and credit : https://www.theoptimistcitizen.com/sandeep-desai-promoting-vidya-daan/.