Our Projects

Vishal Himalaya  Foundation in Mercer Island, WA runs many developmental programs for the rural youth of Akola, India. These programs are intended to hone the inherent talent of those who are deprived of the right environment and resources. Here is a glimpse of our programs.

Kalakaar
It is a vocational training program in carpentry promoting employment skills development. Graduates go on to employment or start their own businesses.

PustaKar
A library-on-wheels, which delivers books to 4,000 school children.

ChitraCar
Video-on-wheels program delivering education and entertainment to villagers and schools.

Schools' Initiative
VHF provides facilities and ideas. Computers, music programs, libraries, environmental beautification are some of the initiatives. Schools are encouraged to write proposals for these facilities.

Akola Teachers' Center
It is a resource center for teachers in which they can continue to learn, exchange ideas and improve and advance their teaching methods.

Project Grow:
Environmental projects are a key component VHF programs. This initiative is to create a nursery for tall trees. The tall trees are naturally being protected from cattle, and have higher survival with scant watering.

New Projects

Check Dams
A series of dams is under construction in the villages surrounding Akola. The region suffers from chronic water shortage, forcing some of the poorest to mine for sweet water in dry channel beds. This project is a Rotary-to-Rotary Matching Grant, funded by Rotary Club of Mercer Island, Washington and Rotary International.
Click here for a video.

Clean Drinking Water
In a second Rotary-to-Rotary Matching Grant, VHF is providing on the ground management of a project to build clean drinking water facilities. In some cases, simple disinfection is called for. In others, desalination is also necessary. This project is integrated with the next one below.

Sanitation
This follows on a Mercer Island Rotary Club grant of 2009, when 42 family toilets were built in the village of Goregaon (now site of a large triple arch dam, see video on Water page). Funding for approximately 500 toilets is in place. Novel designs for sustainability are in progress.

VEEP (VHF Educator Exchange Program)
In July 2009, five Seattle and Mercer Island teachers led by Dr. Sandy Hunt, conducted a series of workshops on how to teach math, science and language arts in a more interactive and child-centered manner.

Environmental Education

How do you teach children about the importance of the environment? We take the approach of teaching by
doing. The Goenka Girls School in Akola was surrounded by a dusty space, inhospitable, uninviting to the girls. VHF invited the school teachers and students to design a garden to cover the space and then paid for it to come to reality.

During the visit of VHF's Eva and Yogi Agrawal in Jaunary 2007, a beautiful space had been created under the project management of English teacher Mr. Sanglodkar. Mrs. Sadhana Goenka, who contributed to the design, stands proudly in the garden. The visitors were deluged with flowers from the garden in a show of
welcoming warmth.

VHF continues to fund similar transformations at other schools and communities. Schools interested in receiving support should submit proposals. For guidelines, click here.

Among other projects that are ongoing, are:
Seeding the beginnings of the Akola Arboretum at Akola Agricutural University, and working with City and District officials on a campaign to "Clean-up Akola”. The effort was initiated in 2005.

Vocational Training

Of the 93% of high-school graduates in India who will never go to college, only a very small percentage ever find jobs, lacking training of any employment value. At the same time, there is a severe shortage of skilled craftsmen and women, capable of producing quality work. The Khandelwal Kalakaar Institute was founded to provide training in modern woodworking, with machines.

Students receive training in the basics of wood, types and properties of wood, the mathematics of woodworking, and are exposed to international books on woodworking and carpentry. Video education is employed for training in use of machines to their best capability. Elements of starting and running a business are also taught. Working with Banks to arrange financing for starting businesses is also included in the curriculum.

All wood used by Kalakaar students is from recycled junk furniture.

Water, Rainfall, Sanitation

Ask any one, and the biggest problem faced by the people of Vidarbha region of India is water. Where groundwater is available, it is too salty (salinity ~800) to drink, wash with, or use to cook. In other regions where water is not so saline, the water table drops with summer and the people are starved. It is for this reason VHF took on the task of bringing relief to some villages. These villages were selected to be particularly hard-hit. That was the origin of the check dams project, which evolved as a partnership between the Rotary clubs of Mercer Island, Washington and of Akola. Funding came in large part from Rotary International. VHF managed all the work on the ground. See the video below to get a sense of this program.

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