Enable graduation of underserved young Indians!

As you get ready for the upcoming holiday season and plan your gifts and investments, we hope you remember your DSF family and children in Bangalore, India. 

In the year bygone, we have together been able to send over 700 students to college and a big step towards transforming their lives. Of the 138 who completed their graduation this year, we are proud to let you know that 120 are gainfully employed with good companies. The others are pursuing further education or on the path of finding their dream job.

Our children have big dreams and we (you and us) have committed to make these dreams come true when we took them into our fold. Today, we want to narrate the story of one such dreamer, who has been an all-time favourite of all at DSF, teachers and students alike!

I remember those days vividly when Hanumantha, an eleven-year-old boy stood outside our E&D centre peeping inquisitively into the classroom.  He was the son of a domestic maid and a daily wage worker, living next to our centre and studying in 6^th grade at a Govt. school. We sent him away saying the classes were for grade 8^th and above and he was yet too young to join us. He kept coming back every day and pleaded to let him join as he wanted to learn to speak English like the kids in the classroom. Finally, his perseverance stood the test of time and we had to let him join our classes in Grade 7, one year younger to others in the class. Thus began his journey with DSF in 2010. His excitement and enthusiasm knew no bounds and he eagerly attended every class at DSF after school hours. We later admitted him to another semi-private school in the vicinity. One could literally see the thirst for knowledge in his eyes. He was fond of all subjects but his favourite remained Biology and he kept reiterating his dream to be a Doctor!

As expected, he completed his Grade 10 with a high score of 92% and was even rewarded a Merit Award from the Govt. of Karnataka. We then helped him select and join one of the premier institutes in the area for his Pre-university education. The Pre-university (PUC) classes are in English and Hanumantha had completed his Grade 10 from a Kannada medium school. Though he had enough knowledge of English through the classes at DSF, it was a struggle in the initial stages to read and write all the science subjects in English. He would keenly attend every class at DSF and spend hours with his mentor trying to overcome this challenge. Soon the first year PUC was done and he had to start preparation for the Big exam after second year PUC. He also had to prepare for CET (Common Entrance Test) for Medical & Engineering colleges. We enrolled him with many other of his batch mates to a professional coaching institute that would train them for both the PUC & the Entrance exams. Lot of hard work, long hours at school and the training institute, sleepless nights were the highlights of the year. The exams went by and it was the day of the results. Hanumantha did pretty well in his PUC exams securing 87% but the competition for medical seats, being what it is, he couldn’t make it to a medical college. He had secured a seat in a very good engineering college and it was a coveted opportunity for any student to grab! All of us at DSF – his teachers, mentors included advised him to take the engineering seat that ascertained a bright future for him. For the first time in all these years, he refused to adhere to our advice! His dream and determination to be a doctor was irrefutable. He made up his mind to take a year off and reappear for the CET exam. Frankly we all thought this was an exercise in vain. We heard nothing from Hanumantha thereafter.

If you think this is the end of the story then you too misunderstood our hero, just as we did at that time. One year later, the little Hanumantha, now much taller and more confident, walks into our office with his new CET rank and his admission letter from a prestigious medical institute! There we had our Dr. Hanumantha in the making!

Today Hanumantha is studying his third year medicine and living his dream!

Such is the determination and fire to achieve something, in our students! Their dreams would remain just that, without YOUR support to make it a reality! Thank you for your commitment and we look forward to connecting you to many more such deserving students!