HISOTRY
The Mahatma Gandhi Trust was established on 03-04-1987, as a charitable trust under the leadership of Shri T.K.C.Vaduthala, a well known writer, visionary and Parliamentarian and a hand full of educated philanthropists from the scheduled castes and tribes of Kochi. The Trust was planned as a platform for the all-round welfare of the poor and down trodden people of Kerala particularly the scheduled castes and tribes. In 1990 Shri T.K.C.Vaduthala became Member of Rajya Sabha. Soon Shri K.R.Narayanan, then Science and Technology Minister in Government of India and later President of India became the Patron of the Trust. As a maiden social service activity, the Trust organized a one year free medical camp in the backward village, Kanjiaramittam, Ernakulam District, Kerala in 1988. Unfortunately the Trust could not get the leadership of Shri TKC Vaduthala for long as he passed away in 1989, in the second year of his tenure as MP. The Trust pulled on with a group of hard working youth and some philanthropic senior bureaucrats. The closure of the one year Medical camp at Kanjiramittam saw the inauguration of a multi specialty poly clinic at Eroor near Thripunithura in a rented building. The poly clinic too operated for over a year providing value based medical service to many poor people in and around Eroor. As the income from poor patients and other sources could not meet the burden to maintain the rented building and pay the doctors, the Poly clinic was closed after a year of operation. But by then the office bearers had realized the need for the Trusts own land and building for sustained service. </p><p>After searching several locations, in 1990 the Trust decided to purchase the 148 cents of land (partly wet land) at Thripunithura at a total cost of around Rs 3,00,000/-. By this time the membership of the Trust had rose to about 120 and several benevolent members provided interest free loans and matching donations to pay for the land. In 19—the Trust formally purchased the land. Equipped with own land of one and half acres, the members felt that we can easily attract government financial support to set facilities like working women’s hostel, Community hall, B Ed college etc and knocked at central and state govt doors for support. Many of these efforts were fostered by eminent parliamentarians like Shri K.K.Balakrishnan. In fact for B Ed College the M.G.University senate inspected the site as well as the a rented palace building the Trust arranged for housing the college. But when the government sanctioned around a dozen B Ed colleges in Kerala the effort of M.G.trust was in vain. Luck, rather government was favouring the interests of NSS, Christians, Muslims and SNDP.
Side by side the Trust was relentlessly working for providing meaningful support for the weaker sections in the society. To provide computer education and other useful training programmes for the poor youth the Trust purchased a portion of a building at Kadavanthra Junction at a cost of about eight lakh rupees. With support from well wishers and some philanthropists the Trust set up a Computer Education Center in this building and stated free training in Desk Top Printing and Diploma in Computer Application for the youth from SC/ST and other weaker sections of the society. The Trust so far had trained over 500 youth in DTP and DCA and almost all of them were able to get employed as data entry operators in different establishments in Kochi city. The Trust plans to take up more useful skill development programmes for uplifting the youth from weaker sections. To achieve this objective the Trust has drawn up a Master Plan to be implemented in the next five years at a modest cost of about two crore rupees. The Trust plan to raise necessary funds for the Master Plan through donations from well wishers; philanthropists, membership campaign etc. The Trust is also in the Silver Jubilee Year and so propose to release a Silver Jubilee Souvenir. All those who are interested in the welfare of the SC/ST and other weaker sections of the society are requested to contribute and cooperate in this ambitious humanitarian step.
For details contact General Secretary mgtrustekm@gmail.com
