Address of Telangana Chapter

TELANGANA Chapter:

Overview of FTS

OVERVIEW

On January 15, 1989, FTS started its journey from Kolkata. Its project is One Teacher School or Ekal Vidyalaya, which imparts non-formal primary education to children between 6 and 14 years of age.

As on September 30, 2016 FTS was funding and monitoring 29463 one teacher schools in 18 states. FTS along with other associates were running 54388 one teacher schools in India and Nepal.
Overall, the association is dedicated to

Advancement of social bond

Healthcare Education

Development Education including preparing for zero cost common farming and different vocations

Awareness of various welfare ventures run by different governments

A total amount of 118,405,323 INR was received as the foreign contribution in the year finished on 31.03.2014.

A total amount of 118,837,281 INR was received as the foreign contribution in the year 2014-15

All donations to FTS are exempted under segment 80G or 35AC/80GGA of Income-Tax Act, 1961.

Awareness towards FTS

CSR

Indian Institute of Company Affairs (IICA) is a Government of India agency under the Ministry of Company Affairs. They have a CSR Hub and Friends of Tribals Society has been registered as one of the implementing agencies. The following links will lead to pages where our name appears in the data base of Implementing Agencies (IA). IA Hub Code : A000152

Pride of FTS

Ekal across the INDIA

Ekal Across the Country

Ekal India host all implementing organisations of the Ekal Abhiyan (Movement) out of which seven are national level organisations. Friends of Tribal Society (FTS) is first registered organisation of the movement founded in 1989 with registered office at Kolkata. Apart from FTS, six other national organisations of movement operate in India are: Bharat Lok Shiksa Parishad (BLSP), Delhi, Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation of India (EVFI), Delhi, Arogya Foundation, Mumbai, Gramothan Foundation, Delhi, Shri Hari Satsang Samiti(SHSS), Mumbai and Ekal Sansthan, Delhi. All these organisations have their several chapters all across India.

All these organisations work for a common Ekal vision under umbrella of Ekal Abhiyan Trust. FTS and BLSP relentlessly work to raise resources for schools, Gramothan Foundation works for integrated & holistic village development, Arogya Foundation works for health care, SHSS is responsible for promoting cultural heritage and Ekal Sansthan takes care of quality control, research & development, Media along with policy & advocacy. EVFI is responsible for judicious management of funds raised from outside India.

Apart from these national organisations, many state level organisations under the umbrella of Gram Sangthan, Lucknow work for supporting operations and for raising resources from local areas for schools to attain self reliance and promote ownership to ensure sustainability. Operations are managed by Executive Committees at national, state, division, district, block and village levels. Every Ekal village has an informal village level committee comprising of seven members. In India, Ekal is represented by an umbrella Abhiyan Trust, 7 national organisations, severalstate level organisations andExecutive Committees including 52000 plus village level committees.

Friends of Tribals Society

                                                                                       

The Friends of Tribals Society (FTS), or Vanbandhu Parishad, is a volunteer organization formed in 1989 with the goal of improving literacy and health among the Adivasi, rural tribal people in India. The society operates one-teacher schools in the villages, led by trained members of the local community.

The FTS is associated with the Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation, which is active in fundraising abroad. FTS operates Ekal Vidyalayas in Assam, Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Karnataka, while its sister organization Bharat Lok Shiksha Parishad (BLSP) operates in Uttar Pradesh, Uttranchal, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Punjaband Jammu and Kashmir.

The schools (Ekal Vidyalyas) are led by a local person who is trained as a teacher. The curriculum is mainly basic literacy in the language of the state, but also introduces concepts of Hinduism, even in areas where that is not the main religion.An Ekal Vidyalaya teacher was killed by Naxalites for ignoring their directive not to teach Hindu culture.As of July 2003, the FTS was operating 6,966 schools with 222,775 students.By July 2007, the FTS and the Ekal Vidyalaya was operating over 23,000 schools.The FTS had the goal of operating 30,000 schools by 2011. The target was achieved and surpassed by March 2010 itself reaching 34,000 schools with 10,30,290 students.

The society is associated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which belongs to the Sangh Parivar, a Hindu nationalist organization, although FTS officials claim to be independent of these organizations. After a 2004 electoral victory by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Madhya Pradesh, the Human Resources Development minister Murli Manohar Joshi gave credit to the FTS for helping achieve the BJP victory. In May 2005, the Union Human Resource Development Ministry stopped grants to the FTS for their schools after an inquiry reported that the organization was misusing this funding. The FTS was said to be inflating their school registers, failing to provide educational material and teaching divisive ideology. In December 2010 the State Bank of India donated money to purchase teaching materials for 150 one-teacher schools in the Patna area.

Training and Development