News from the villages, April 2025
12.05.2025 News
The major developments of the month are the three evening coaching centers, Bautijol, Panchabanpur and Bandlodanga have been closed from this month. There are several reasons for taking this step. In 2013, the two centers Bautijol and Bandlogram were started with the financial support of Visva-Bharati University and the Panchabanpur center was by the Rotary Club of Santiniketan. The financial support to run these centers continued for two years. Later, the organization decided to run the centers with its own funds, because most of the students were from the RSV school and their parents were unable to provide them with any academic support. After ten years the economic situation of the families have got better and many of their elder siblings are now studying in high schools who help them in their regular studies at home.
Another development is the full-fledged health care unit at Ghosaldanga also has been closed from this month. The health unit was started by Dr. Monika Golembiewski more than a decade ago. After opening her own hospital at Bolpur, Dr. Sitaram Banerjee visited the health unit first twice a week and later once a week. Since last few months Dr. Banerjee has stopped visiting the centre due to his own health condition. The organization has decided to motivate the villagers to avail themselves of government hospitals where the service has improved better than before. The health workers of the organization Parboti Murmu amnd Rani Baski however will continue to provide their first aid medical service and medical guidance to the villagers.
The regular programs of the organization, the RSV primary school, the hostel, evening coaching centers of Ghosaldanga and Bishnubati, the bio-farm, and the museum activities went on normally. Other activities that were organized in the month are given below.
The annual Children’s Fair Day was celebrated on 9th April at Bishnubati. The students and parents of the village put up their self-prepared food stalls for the public. A quiz competition on Santal cultural life and history was organized by the senior students. The event ended with the dance and music programme at 10 pm.
2) From this month Pintu Ghosh has taken over the post of In-charge of the bio-farm. For the last two decades Monotosh Das has been taking care of the project. Being a trained electrician Monotosh will now look after the construction and repair work of the organization.
3) Rimpa Debnath and Sayan Mondal, the Social Work students of Visva-Bharati University gave a presentation of their 10 months concurrent fieldwork work report in the organization to the senior members.