Wearing a simple cotton attire and a humble smile, Dr. Achyuta Samanta can be seen busy making the impossible possible. He is a man of few words but his achievements are well narrated by the confidence that education has given to the tribal children. Meet the founder of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, which today is Asia's largest tribal residential institute. Convincing the families of 193 tribal children, he laid the school's foundation stone and today more than 10,000 children are getting benifitted by this temple of knowledge. This is the real success that satisfies him.
"It was difficult to convince those who were used to hunting in the forests for food, to send their children to school. But somehow I managed to convince them. I believe than illiteracy causes poverty and literacy drives it away."- Dr. Achyuta Samanta
KISS is a school that gives the tribal children an opportunity to dream and turn it into reality. They have come out of hunger and poverty and want the same for their families too. They have realised that education is the key and they are marching forward to succeed in their mission with hope and confidence shown by their mentor Dr. Samanta.
"Besides illiteracy the tribals are victims of health hazards, physical and mental exploitation.
Even after 65 years of independence, the tribal population of our country is deprived of the
basic facilities that others have. They are the soft target of the Naxals who involve the innocent
children in their nefarious activities."- Dr. Samanta elaborates.
Besides KISS, Dr. Samanta is also the man behind the hugely successful deemed university of the country, the KIIT University. It has 16 state-of-the-art fully wi-fi campuses under its umbrella, that offer courses like engineering, medical sciences, rural management, business management, computer applications, etc. Also in the pipeline are college of law, mass communication and fashion technology.
The man behind such an empire wasn't born with a golden spoon. He was a part of a big family living in a small village of Odisha where one had to struggle for survival. Dr. Samanta lost his father at a young age but such worsening situations only made him stronger. He believed that only education can drive him out of poverty, and this dedication made him fight all the odds to gain his doctorate qualification.
A man of such a nature and ideology like Dr. Samanta could not sit in a job with his degrees and qualifications. He had a deep urge to use the resources available to him to bring education close to the underpriviledged. So, after completing his graduation, the visionary embarked on the path to realise his dream. Though the path was full of hurdles, but with the company of like-minded people and courage, the destination seemed close. His first venture was a one-room Industrial Training Institute (ITI) with just 12 students. Today it has transformed into a world class University educating and training more than 15000 students.
"I would travel 300 kms a day on my mobike, going door to door and requesting people for money to start my industrial training centre. I would be insulted, humiliated but i didn't give up. There were even days when I was burdened with loans and with no way to repay them. It was horrible."
- Dr. Samanta reflects back.
Apart from KISS and KIIT, Dr. Samantha has also been working for his village, Kalarabank, to transform it from a sleepy unknown place into a model village of Odisha. Today the village has good roads, a police station, a post office, an English medium school, a vernacular school, a knowledge centre, hospitals and medical insurance cover. Not just Dr.Samanta's immense work as an educationist, social entrepreneur and a visionary are admirable for all his fellow countrymen but also his personal life are an eye opener. Even today
he lives in a rented house with plastic tables and chairs. He is a bachelor and a vegetarian, and fasts twice a week. He prefers to have his official seat under a tree in the KISS campus to be more close to the children. His simplicity encourages the staff members to follow his footsteps and work more religiously to make the noble cause a success.
"I believe in distribution of wealth. God has made me simple-I don't crave for luxury. People
don't believe me when I say this but this is the truth."- says Dr. Achyuta Samanta.
No comments:
Post a Comment