Despite India now being the sixth largest economy in the world, there are millions still living on the breadline.  The rich get richer and the poor remain in a state of dire poverty, more than half of the country’s wealth being owned by just one per cent of the population.

The villages in particular suffer from lack of schools so thousands of children are destined for a lifetime of menial, poorly paid jobs, like their parents and grandparents before them, thus perpetuating the poverty which has blighted their families for generations.  In Tamil Nadu alone, 2500 villages have no free schooling at all and in 2004, when the Trust was set up, Kovalam was one of them, apart from the seriously neglected primary school. 

Happily for Kovalam,  since then education has been turned-on-its-head and today, through the work of the Venkat Trust, it is is a village of educational excellence, its children now enjoying an excellent education from kindergarten through to university and colleges, enabling hundreds of young people to get degrees (unheard of previously) and enjoy fulfilling careers.  The future is bright.