1. Supporting Education for children of ground level staff:

As ground level staff are forced to work in remote areas, away from their families and not paid adequately, their children are often deprived of lack of good education facilities. This results in poor education.

We can help such children by providing scholarship and additional support to access quality education. This will encourage them to progress well in their education and there by enable them to get better jobs once they complete their education.

As a model, we had identified a boy, son of a forest watcher, as a bright prospect and provided scholarship to him, amounting to Rs. 25,000 per year for the last five years. This helped the student in gaining access to better educational facilities, resulting in better academic performance and eventually Helping the student to join “Bachelor of Engineering” in a reputed educational institution in the state. Currently he is in 5th Semester, securing an average of 80% marks in “Bachelor of Engineering”, having a bright prospect for a job. This has given us immense pleasure and motivation to carry out many more such initiatives Similar support can be provided in larger scale to the children of the ground level staff working at Bhadra Tiger Reserve.

To support education for 150 children of the ground level staff working in Bhadra Tiger Reserve, following cost will be involved:

Students Age Scholarship Per Student Number of Students Total

Depending on the funds available, we can choose to vary the number of students we support, who can be selected based on merit/current academic performance, age group etc. Hence, this project can be scaled based on the funding available for this welfare activity.

Disha To Environmnet

Forest has no boundaries; we may not be concerned about the borders & geography of many countries especially if they are not sharing the borders with our Nation. But all ofus should be concerned about the forest areas of every Nation because Ecosystem is universal and impacts the earth in total, not limited to one country.

Our future lies in these forests where our roots originally had been… Vasudhaiva kutumbakam (Vasudha = Earth, eva = Indeed, kutumbakam = family) Earth indeed is one family ….

Karnataka has forest cover of ~20% of its geographical area, which is around the same as the country’s average forest cover. Only 3.3% of the total area is identified as protected area.

Though protected forest cover is sparse, importance of the same can never be undermined. Forests are very important habitats of this planet, and have a huge role to play in producing important natural resources like fresh air & water and also preserving the rich soil from erosion.

In-spite-of the important role they play, often forests receive meager attention for their protection, management, conservation and improvement. State government’s Forest Department holds the responsibility of managing the forests, however the investments made towards the same is highly inadequate.

Ground level staff of Forest Department is often plagued with issues like under staffing and deprived of any niche training, posted in difficult terrains (deep inside the jungles), away from their homes and deprived of all the facilities which one would normally have. They are under paid and usually over aged.

They are also often constrained by lack of adequate infrastructure, vehicles, buildings, weapons and facilities.

Families of staff of Forest Department also have no option, but to live in remote locations which have very little medical facilities and education options for their children.

Approximately 200 ground level staff works at Bhadra Tiger Reserve, who are living in these circumstances, silently working for all of us who enjoy every amenities offered to us without even realizing let alone acknowledging the forest and its ground level workers….

The medical wing of GT Foundation has a vision of providing health services to the community and continued medical education to the local practicing doctors, paramedics and health care workers.

We would achieve this target through:

• Conducting regular health education programs to patients addressing issues like diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and also infectious diseases. Our services include creating awareness, detection, assessment, management and referral services. We aim to cater people with lower socioeconomic background and especially would like to reach suburbs and villages – where our roots lie – unfortunately the weak link in our society
  Continued Medical Educations to Physicians, Diabetologists, Postgraduate students, General practioners, Nurses and Diabetes educators with a purpose to keep abreast with latest developments in medical science. We would like to specially emphasize and reach people who live around cities and who cater rural areas – An unmet need

• Design course for MBBS graduates, Diabetes educators and nurses in specific fields of diabetes management enabling to sharpen their skills and to give patient centered treatment

• Formulate guidelines for our local population based on recent clinical data and international guidelines – tapering to our local needs, customs, and socioeconomic strata.

• Generated data and publications from our clinical practice and awareness programs.

We look forward to achieve our goal with our esteem panel of doctors, their knowledge and commitment.

We also look forward for patronage from Pharmaceutical companies, Government and Non governmental organizations.

Regards,
Dr. Manohar KN
Medical Director.