Sanjeev and I visited Prasanna Jyothi a couple of times when we were in Bangalore. It is located in JP Nagar. It is home to around 20 girls, some of them orphans and some with single parents who were unable to take care of their children.
The building is a two-storeyed house. The front yard has a small garden. They are located very close to a lake – the lake was about 20-30 feet from the building when we were there. They have a place to keep footwear outside. We entered the building and met two girls: one was the youngest there, Sirisha, and one of the older ones took us inside. The space was very clean and was furnished modestly. We had gone to meet Sundari Mami and Ratna Mami, the two coordinators of the project to talk about their funding requirement. While we were waiting for Ratna Mami, we were chatting with Sundari Mami about Prasanna Jyothi. They started it about 20 years back when a few of them who were volunteers with Prasanna Trust decided to start something to give back to the society. They finally decided to start a home for girls since they believe that educating women is equivalent to uplifting a family. They started off in a small establishment and built the current place a few years back. Prasanna Jyothi has been home to about 20 girls for a long time now, the number not increasing since they are want to be able to provide resources to all the children to do well in their education and careers.
Soon Ratna Mami joined us and we started talking about their plan for Prasanna Jyothi. One of their plans is to make Prasanna Jyothi self-reliant. To that end, they want to start a catering service. They recently started selling some snacks etc that they prepare there. It has so far been the two coordinators and the cook who have been making the snacks. For the self-reliant unit, they foresee hiring women from the local neighborhood and any of the graduates from Prasanna Jyothi itself, but not the children. The catering service might be a good idea in this neighborhood since there are many high rise buildings coming up there. However, the catering service might be unable to fully take care of their expenses. Hence, they are also considering creating a corpus fund. This program has already started. They receive publicity via Prasanna Trust and a pamphlet they showed us had information about donating to a corpus, the scheme was called Jeevanadana. However, they have not been able to receive many donations yet.
They also want to construct a new building in the plot of land they currently use as a garden since the current one has been flooding regularly for the past few years during heavy rains. When the building was constructed, the architects did not provide a raised platform, which might have helped during heavy rains. They intend to construct the new building on a raised platform. Flooding is not the only problem; they want to provide more space to the children. Right now, the older children find it difficult to study with the younger ones running around. Also, the construction of a new building would free up the current building for the catering service they are planning.
The last time the lake flooded, the situation was very bad and due to the water, the doors of the bathrooms and restrooms on the ground floor got wet and are falling apart. The coordinators asked us if we could provide funding to repair the doors.
The younger children soon got home since their classes end around noon. We had a fun time with them, though they were mostly chatting in kannada and neither of us understands the language. The next time we visited Prasanna Jyothi, we went on a holiday afternoon. All the girls were at home. They sang us a Sanskrit song and then we got down to playing. We started off with dodgeball and while I was their easiest target, Sanjeev played very well. So for the next game which was seven stones, Sanjeev was in demand and the poor team that got me did not look too happy. Understandably so! I was terrible even in this game. Am sure musical chairs don’t count, but just wanted to mention I managed to win one of the games!
Sanjeev’s sister’s family lives in one of the high-rise buildings near Prasanna Jyothi and they have been actively involved in talking about Prasanna Jyothi in their community. So far they have been able to collect about Rs. 30,000/-, which is very encouraging. This local support is definitely helpful, since Asha only supports about a third of their expenses. Once recommendation for the support a child program is to consider raising the sponsorship amount from $ 20 / month to $ 30 / month.