Opening address by Devdas Adidela on February 24, 2007 at Nizamabad, AP, India

Good evening everybody !!!
 
Respected  and honorable guests on the Dias,  audience & the Ambedkar Scholars, the parents, donors and all our fellow brethren and the press,
 
It is my pleasure to present the 4^rd Ambedkar Scholarships report
 
I am Devdas Adidela, one of the coordinators of Ambedkar Scholarships in India since it was started in 2003. This project was started with an intention to recognize, encourage, and help economically backward but intelligent students from Dalit communities. It was started with just 2 scholarships by Mr. Benjamin Paul Kaila, a Software Professional in USA and a native of Guntur Dist. Due to resource constraints these scholarships are limited to only students who were successful in SSC and attending college in Andhra Pradesh. But our aim is to make it an all India phenomenon.
 
Every year we send application form to all the Govt and social welfare schools in AP. Students are required to write 3 small essays in tune with Ambedkarite philosophy. While seleting students we consider many factors apart from marks obtained in SSC.
 
In 2004, we distributed 24 scholarships and disbursed Rs.1,20,000 in scholarships alone and in 2005 we distributed 37 scholarships to the tune of Rs.1,85,000. This year the number has risen to 71 in all out of which 34 scholarships are for students from scavenging community. Also, as part of our intention to spread the project all over India, we are awarding 8 scholarships to students from Tamilnadu. It is growing year by year with the help of concerned individuals, both Dalits and non Dalits, from all over the world.
 
We are also involved in other activities as well. To sum up our activities:

• We have collected little more than Rs.2,00,000 to Bant Singh who lost both his hands and one leg in an attack by landlords while asking for justice. Dr KP Singh who is among us is responsible to hand over the funds to him.

• We have collected around Rs.50,000 towards rehabilitation of a 5 year old Dalit girl raped and struggling for life in Uttar Pradesh. This amount will be disbursed to her after a while.

• We have introduced a new project called SKA to encourage and help children from Scavenging families.

• We have expanded it to Tamilnadu by giving 8 scholarships this year.

• To understand the usefulness of the project we sent survey questionnaire to our previous scholars of this project. (Talk briefly about the results of the survey.)

• We have a sponsored a student in Nursing education in Guntur. We want to do more of such sponsorships.

• We have recognized the talents of an Iron girl from Maharashtra, Ms Sheetal and awarded a scholarship. She was the first in India to win world Karate Championship recently. We wan to recognize more of such high acheivers.

• We helped an organization called “Be Educated Movement” to establish 2 libraries with books for children in Dalit colonies in Mandur near Tenali and Timmapuram near Chilakaluripeta in Guntur district. According to our reports, children are delighted to come and read books.

• We are all set to start a new project “Dalit Oral History recording”. We are going to concentrate on mostly rural folk of their life and struggle due to caste discrimination.

• We have started a Micro-loan project in AP. We gave 4 loans or Rs.2,500 each with nominal interest to Dalit women to help them start small businesses like door to door vegetable vending, starting a tea shop, a grocery shop etc. It is an experimental project and we would like to expand it if successful. This will be our next major focus. In-charge for these 2 projects is Rev Sundar Rao who is among us.

• We have teamed with ASHA for education, US, and conducted a film show “Arising Light” and interactive session with the students of University of California, LA to introduce Dr Ambedkar to non-dalits

• We are in talking to some coaching institutes to help our children to get coaching for entrance exams for IIMs, GMAT, TOFEL etc. The coaching will be free if his projects kicks in.

• We are also working with certain schools and people in high position to sponsor rural Dalit students in English medium schools.

We are very ambitious. A few of our ambitions are:

• To expand the scholarship project to all India

• To establish an NGO in India and USA

• To devise an effective monitoring process of the Scholars i.e. post disbursement.

• To mentor our students to give them right path in their career and society.

• To diversify the project in several other ways

But what is preventing us:

• Lack of financial resources

• Lack of dedicated volunteers to work in other states. If substantial support is available in these areas, we are confident that we can do much more work among the people who are in need. So, we need your help.

Finally, I must thank all the donors across the globe for their commitment to the society they belong and the confidence imposed on us from time to time.
  
May God bless them abundantly!
 
Thank U one and ALL.

Devdas Adidela