Mumbai: Dr Jawahar Surisetti, eminent educationist and psychologist, has been bestowed the BBC Knowledge Award for outstanding contribution to education at the World Education Awards at Taj Lands End in Bandra by the Minister of Education of Malaysia on 18th February. He was honoured for this award for his mass movement to reduce dropouts and girl education.
Dr Jawahar Surisetti, as he is popularly known as, commits 30 days in a year, to tour mofussil areas of the tribal states and talks to a lakh of students every year on his scheduled tours with the governments of states, Tata CSR, Santosh Rungta Group, Dainik Bhaskar, Times of India, UN and many other partnerships. He reaches out to the disadvantaged boys and girls and counsels them on careers and opportunities available to them, exam stress and other such issues that they are not aware of.
Every year these tours of Dr Jawahar called Career Yatra, Pehla Kadam, Explora, Raahat and many more receive accolades from young students of rural and tribal area and their parents for the selfless service. The terrain is difficult to traverse but in these 30 days Dr Jawahar takes to the road, have food on the road but continues to meet the students and talk to them and their parents. The sessions are fun , interactive and keep the students engaged for hours through practical role plays and song and dance too while talking about serious issues like career, exams, government schemes, opportunities, motivation at times of challenging life situations like poverty.
At the end of each session, he gets a standing ovation and leave the children singing “Sir, o sir, we love you”. The journey continues with children reaching out to his website www.drjawaharsurisetti.com throughout the year posting queries on their aspirations, desires and difficulties.
Dr Jawahar Surisetti has also been running girl education and health projects for MyBeti and Think for India movement. He confesses that this difficult journey of 30 days and one lakh students drains him physically but gives him the much needed energy to sustain for the whole year in his role as advisor to governments and corporates.
