These youth try to reach out in song to Lambanis

Satyaprakash Pati, joint secretary of Singing Skylarks, a charitable trust, tells DNA that youngsters can help find solutions to problems in remote villages.

Who are the Singing Skylarks?
The Singing Skylarks is a group that was first set up two years ago. It comprises more than 140 members from different walks of life. We hold cultural programmes to draw awareness to various causes. Singing Skylarks is registered as a charitable trust.

How did you get drawn to the Kere Thanda, a small hamlet of 275 houses of Lambanis, near Hampi?
The village was chosen as our first halt in Phase 1 of Project Hampi. A call from a housewife in Hospet motivated us to take up the cause of Kere Thanda. She had been active, along with a few others, in taking up some social causes there, but they had not been able to make much progress. Despite its proximity to Hampi, a world heritage site, the locals face many problems. There is a lack of basic amenities like drinking water and health care. Our aim was to highlight the problems, so we could gather funds for these purposes.

Do you engage in data collection and analysis for your work?
Project HAMPI is our first step in rural development. Our team interacts with the residents of the village to identify problems and seek solutions. We prepare a project report, which we circulate for gathering funds. We are planning a musical event to awaken youngsters and encourage greater participation in social work. The proceeds from the event would go towards these villages. Trips to the villages would be also organised.

What is the response from young Bangaloreans? What is the profile of volunteers?
The volunteers for the trips are basically core members of Skylarks, who work for companies such as Motorola and CISCO. Many of them are residents of Hospet. We also have volunteers from Mangalore, Belgaum, Punjab and New Delhi in our team.
Members are free to join us and pitch in with the work. We hope that any trepidation that young people have about doing this kind of work will disappear once they make the visit with us.

What tips would you offer for first-timers engaging in this kind of work? And how do people who wish to join you go about getting in touch?
We have tie-up with ActionAid, an international NGO with enormous experience of work in rural areas and poor societies. ActionAid helps us in our preparations for the trips. We request those joining us to ‘dress down’, as we do not like to draw attention to ourselves. Also, we seek the permission of the village sarpanch for our work. We encourage our volunteers to be good listeners, respectful to the people we work with.