Image Source: Rahul Prasad

Hardly any 24-year-old youngster would do what this Delhi boy is doing since a year. Rahul Prasad, a final-year student of RV College of Engineering has adopted Bhadrapura, a small village 3km off Mysuru Road, in Ramanagara district of Karnataka.

The First Meeting
The story begins 4 years back when Rahul first visited the village as a part of a medical camp for children. He and a few other volunteers went there with toothbrushes, soaps and other material for its “Hakki Pikki” tribal people and took classes on hygiene.

The Initiative
After taking many such hygiene camps, Rahul realized that nothing had changed. The village needed more than soap and toothpaste. It needed a continuous engagement to bring in positive results. So he “adopted the village” along with its 140 families with an aim of developing it into a smart village. He intended to do this by improving the quality of living conditions of villagers.

Rahul’s organization “Juvenile Care Charitable Trust” works for the upliftment of underprivileged children. It has signed an agreement with the jurisdictional Manchanayakanahalli panchayat development officer and taken up work for welfare activities. While Rahul regularly visits his village, his volunteers drop in during weekends to participate in welfare activities.

Rahul’s work
Rahul and the other volunteers have managed to figure out 3 major health concerns for the village:

• Lack of hygiene despite the village being within 50km of IT City.
• Clogged roadside drains turning into breeding e grounds for mosquitoes.
• Open defecation which is still a reality.

The village is in a pathetic condition. The nearest hospital is about 8km away! There is no denying fact that Rahul and his team is doing miracles in this remote tribal village. They collect and distribute clothes for the villagers, especially for the pregnant women. His team is also looking at alternative power sources such as piezoelectric generators, by installing sensors below the main road. There are also plans to improve connectivity to the village by setting up startups here to create jobs.

Acknowledgements
Last March, Rahul was presented the prestigious UN Karmaveer Chakra Award and REX Global Fellowship, instituted by the Indian Confederation of NGOs in association with the United Nations, a national medallion for proactive voluntary action. All these at the age of 24!

Rahul says: The journey hasn’t been a hunky-dory for me. A village is a complex phenomenon. There are positive and negative vibes, but its good I’m encountering all this early in life. I prefer to increase the number of positive-minded people and drive them towards change. For me, the village has become second home now.
Today, Rahul looks at Bhadrapura with a possessive pride. There is a palpable change, and he knows he is driving it.

The Logical Indian appreciates efforts taken by this young social entrepreneur. In a society where people often complain about the things they don’t get, people like Rahul Prasad are the true face of change.