Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care been working tirelessly to help less-privileged students from rural areas fulfil their dreams of attaining quality education. An important tool in this pursuit of education is the affordability and availability of quality educational aids. One of the landmark projects under the Educational Care programme is Shrimad Rajchandra Educational Aids, through which notebooks and stationery items are distributed at highly subsidised rates to students across India over the last 15 years. Since inception, educational aids worth over Rs. 45 crores have been distributed to students. Several students and their families even travel over 100kms to purchase these items, to avail benefit of the good quality and substantially lower price.
The 2019 distribution drive was launched from Dharampur. During the course of this drive, more than 26 lakh notebooks and 1 lakh stationery items worth Rs. 8 crores were distributed to more than 2 lakh students through more than 270 centres across India. The drive spread across Gujarat in cities like Ahmedabad, Anand, Botad, Idar, Jamnagar, Nadiad, Rajkot, Surat, Vadodara and Vadva and major cities across India like Chennai, Mumbai, Pune etc. A majority of the volunteers involved in this distribution drive were senior citizens and youth. The young volunteers also conducted a training on retail sales for students of Shrimad Rajchandra Vidyapeeth and Shrimad Rajchandra Gurukul, who provided immense support in the distribution drive.
The notebooks have an image of Shrimad Rajchandraji and Mahatma Gandhiji on the front cover, serving as an inspiration for students. Inspirational messages from Pujya Gurudevshri are also included, which give practical tips on how students can handle challenging situations. The eco-friendly notebooks are of ‘Classmate’ brand while the compass boxes are of the ‘Kores’ brand. The distribution drive was covered by newspapers like Divya Bhaskar, Sandesh, Janmabhoomi, Western Times, Rajasthan Patrika, Saamana etc.
Nirmala Chaudhari, a mother of three and resident of a village in South Gujarat shares, “We need around 60 notebooks every year. My husband is the only earning member – so it is difficult for us to afford other notebooks. Every year, I come here to buy all notebooks and stationery items for our children. In other places, 60 notebooks would easily cost up to Rs. 3000, but here, we are able to get them for around Rs. 1500 – this is a big saving for our family.”
Shrimad Rajchandra Educational Aids is acting as a catalyst to sustain the educational aspirations of students from less privileged backgrounds. The initiative is proving to be a boon for several families whose financial burden is being mitigated through this project.