
Last year, about 2,500 students from 25 schools took part in the competition. My Mom went to different schools and encouraged them to participate and this is how the program grew.” so he kind of thought, why not use the words to reach more children in poor government schools. “So, my father remembered seeing the National Spelling Bee in the U.S.
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“Bangalore is a very cosmopolitan city, and if you don’t know English and you only know the native language of Kannada, you’re at a disadvantage to get a good job, even as a driver or anything like that,” Rajendra explained. In 2009, the foundation expanded its programs to reach even more children in underserved government schools and help them improve their English language skills. In the past 20 years, Sahasra Deepika has helped hundreds of impoverished children, especially girls. Rajendra, who serves as the foundation’s president, says her father’s goal is to help poor children in his hometown get a good education. “And he’s always believed that if each one of us would light the life of just one child in need, the world would change for the better.”

“My father looks at it as 1,000 lights of hope, love and compassion for children in need,” she added. Sahasra Deepika is a Sanskrit word that means 1,000 lights, explained Ramakrishna’s daughter, Sarva Rajendra. When he retired, he returned to Bangalore with his wife, Vijaya, and in 1998, founded the nonprofit Sahasra Deepika Foundation for Education.
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He settled in West Virginia and had a successful professional and family life. Eventually, he came the United States, where he received his doctorate degree in civil engineering. Motivated by his teacher’s encouragement, he worked hard in school, won scholarships and went to college. Ramakrishna was the youngest of seven kids, raised by a poor widow, who was lucky enough to have caring adults around him who helped him pursue an education. Those competitions inspired him to start a similar program in Bangalore, to give poor kids there a way to improve their English language skills and advance their educational opportunities. He became familiar with spelling bees, in which students spell increasingly difficult words to win prizes like college scholarships. The retired civil engineer from Bangalore had the opportunity to attend college in the United States, where he settled and raised a family.
