Sunday 2 April 2006

Light a Candle Foundation

“Light a Candle” Foundation


“Small money can make a big difference in the developing world and good education can transform the individuals and in turn the societies, nations and the world.”

My life was transformed by support of my parents who saved their little income to get me good education. For the first 10 years I only needed Rs. 500($10) per month and then for the next five years Rs. 1000 ($20) per month. Later on when I went to the university I needed Rs. 3000($60) per month for another five years. Thus if we calculate the total amount of money over a period of twenty years which went into transforming me from a school boy to a university post-graduate would be Rs. 300000 or US$ 6000. After joining the Indian Foreign service and being posted to Moscow for my first foreign assignment my salary along with the foreign allowance sums up to be slightly more than US $ 2000 per month. Thus I recovered all the money spent on me over twenty years in just three months time. Now I have saved enough money to support a few school going students and transform their lives over a period of two decades. The question now is how can I do it? How to canalize my savings to transform lives of the poorest of the poor? The first thing that comes to my mind is to set a foundation for this purpose. I thought a name for it. Many names came to my mind but “Light a Candle” seemed to be the most appropriate as it is self explanatory about its mission. One candle can light the other and the process goes on and on till the last candle is lit.
The foundation can begin by supporting motivated children in the countries of South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The foundation would be their mentor and educational guardian from the school time up-to the time they are ready to get on with their lives.

ANY SUGGESTIONS???

9 Comments:

Blogger rachana said...

a noble move indeed!!

3/4/06 2:15 pm  
Blogger White Square said...

Thank you Rachna. I hope to build it slowly and gradually!Any suggestions?

4/4/06 5:32 pm  
Blogger White Square said...

Hi Ninad,
Welcome to I&U,
I have sent you a mail in response at the adress given by you...
best wishes!
abhay

6/6/06 1:24 am  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

hi abhay,

a very good thought. I firmly believe that for a country to prosper one has to start by educating its citizens.

As they say charity begins at home, I think it was your blog that I read that you wanted to start a school in your hometown for young girls in your village. Why not start this process by sponsoring one girl from your village and then build on it to start a school.

Let me know what you think and I can contribute if you have something feasible.

If you want to make it a little more easy, I use these two charity organizations - Akanksha and Ekal Vidya.

Sanjay.

13/9/06 1:41 am  
Blogger White Square said...

Dear Sanjay,
Thank you so much for your thoughts. I am sorry to reply so late. I have just seen your comment here. I compeletely agree with you. I am running a school in my village rightnow and it has a number of girl students. Slowly I want to build up and enlarge the activities.
Do you have a blog or mail so we can get in touch? You have mentioned these two charity organizations...could you please send me their adresses or websites?!
Best..

4/10/06 2:27 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello Abhay,

sorry, for the very late reply. My email id is email2sanjay@yahoo.com, please email me and we can take it from there.

The urls of the two websites are www.akanksha.org and www.ekal.org

Thanks,
Sanjay.

31/8/07 1:46 am  
Blogger Unknown said...

Dear Abhay,
Good to see that you have gone far ahead with your journey.
Let every steps of yours be blessed. Join you very soon.
Mary

28/9/07 2:56 pm  
Blogger we-the-helping-hands said...

Dear Abhay,
Good to find people working in similar directions :)
Hope you are blessed in all your endeavours.
Adding your blog to mine:)
Sari

18/3/08 1:32 pm  
Blogger we-the-helping-hands said...

and here's a tiny effort.....
http://we-the-helping-hands.blogspot.com/

18/3/08 1:33 pm  

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