Through their innovative camps the Savarkar Education Trust wants to bridge the gap between the rural and urban populace of the state

This summer will be a bit different and a lot more promising for the tribal kids of Dhanu District, a sleepy suburb of Thane. Most of the children here go to the local government run schools, and belong to the Adhivasi communities. Around 300 children of the various schools run by the Zilla Parishad will be coming down to Pune as a part of a summer camp organised for them by the Savarkar Education Trust, which has been working in the district since the year 1993.

Speaking more about the camp, Pratap Gaikwad, chairperson of the trust says, “One of the main things that we wanted to do when we started out was that to ensure that we worked towards the development of these children from the rural part of the state. We used to have camps like these for the children in Dhanu earlier on but this is the first time that these children will be coming to Pune and having a camp here.”

“The camp, which began on May 3 will go on till May 10. It is being conducted at Seth Dagdu Ram Kataria High School, in Gultekdi. Instead of making it a normal summer camp, we have experts on various fields coming in here to teach these children. In addition to the 300 children we will also have 50 teachers and other volunteers from our trust accompanying them. In addition to this members from other NGO’s will also be helping us. Another notable fact of the camp is that since most of the children are very poor and cannot afford to pay much the camp is conducted free every year for them,” he adds.

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