Kale Trust
(Dr. M.N.Kale Memorial Fund)
Registered Charity No. 1053230
14 Layfield Road
London NW 4 3 UG
Tel: 020 8202 7555

 

Dr. M.N.Kale Memorial fund was founded in 1993 after sad & sudden death of a certain Dr. Kale in London. Dr. Kale had no immediate family in London and some Maharashtrian friends undertook the entire funeral and other arrangements. In due course his relatives – an older brother and a sister- were traced and contacted in India. Dr. Kale had left behind a substantial sum of money which the appointed solicitors recovered and dully paid to the relatives.

However, the brother, Shree Nanasahib wished to use his share for a charitable purpose and hence arranged to establish a charity in London under the above name. This charity is now popularly known as The Kale Trust.

The first trustees were all from the U.K. and consisted of Dr. Govind Kanegaonkar, Late Dr. Ashok Bhide and Shree Mukund Nawathe.

The main work according to the wishes of (now late) Nanasahib was to be amongst the Maharashtrians whether in U.K. or in Maharashtra.

 

Activities:

All the money received from Shree Kale has been invested in the U.K. in consultation with an authorised financial adviser. All the work over the years has been done with the income received from these investments which means our work is fairly limited which necessitates targeting the right causes.

Dr. Kale was a scientist and had gained his Ph.D. from the University College, London in Chemistry. Nanasahib wished the trust to help any Marathi post-graduate student in the U.K. Accordingly, the trust set a scheme which was advertised in the Maharashtra Mandal (MM) brochure. We had one applicant whom we helped. After reviewing the cost of such contribution and comparative needs, it was decided, in consultation with Nanasahib that we should concentrate on helping the needy in Maharashtra.

The trust has also helped Maharashtra Mandal in different ways over the years.

In Maharashtra

To facilitate the work of the trust, a separate charity was registered in India, also called Kale Trust. Late Nanasahib gave another generous donation to this sister organisation which is being looked after locally.

First major donation the trust made was to the village school from where the Kale family had come and where they still had contacts. The school was short of a lot of material and with Nanasahib’s consent a one off donation was made.

We looked round various Maharashtrian projects and found that there were many small organisations doing splendid work and were looking for help in many ways. It is, of course, not possible to help everybody or support activities in all different fields. We have been concentrating mainly on education and medical fields and predominantly in rural areas.

Our first major donation was to an organisation called ‘VIDNYAN VAHINI’ – a mobile science laboratory, which travels round various villages where the senior pupils have no access to any science equipment and hence are deprived from actually doing any experiments described in the text books. VV has equipped a bus with all the modern apparatus and travels from a village to village in a pre-organised timetable. The teachers of the school to be visited have to undergo a short course with the VV and have to help pupils perform the experiments. A large group of qualified volunteer teachers is always available to accompany the bus.

The VV example has set many other organisations to follow suit and we are now working with two such organisations – more about that later.

The other organisations we have helped are: Two Balwadis (pre-primary classes for farm workers’ children) in the rural district of Shirur. We helped these to make a start and funded them for two years by paying for the training of the two assistants from the village, material and stipend for these two for two years. They are now self-sufficient and are being helped by others.

Pune Marathi Granthalay (Library) runs summer libraries in many rural areas. They have a huge stock of books which they lend to these small off shoots. A temporary librarian is appointed to run these during school summer holidays. The volunteer is paid a stipend and travelling expenses. We funded some 40 such volunteers.

We have helped local groups of doctors to run an eye camp in an Adivasi area as well as a small Ayurvedic dispensary in a village near Pune.

Our major project, however,was Shabda Yatra – a roving library. While working with the VV, we noticed that many children in rural areas had no access to books apart from their text books. Working along the lines of the VV, we helped to establish an entirely new organisation, Shabda Yatra, which bought some 1500 childrens’ books, covered them and made up bags of around 50 books each. Initially some 20 schools from the surrounding rural area of Pune joined in the scheme. They were allowed to borrow two or three bags depending upon the number of pupils, keep these for five-six weeks and then exchange them for other bags. The scheme was well received by the pupils and the teachers alike. Later on local Zopadpatties (slums) and similar groups were added. The work was done by two ladies working completely voluntarily. However, after some six-seven years they retired due to family demands and we were unable to secure similar talent again. This led us to a different model. We approached new VV’s and they agreed to take our offer of the books and run Shabda Yatra along side their own work. We are at present working with two such VV and are in discussions with two- three other similar organisations.

In the medical field, we started with a small donation to a cataract shibir (camp) run by a Rotary club in a rural area. Since then we have worked with Laxmi Eye hospital of Panvel and HALO medical foundation of Andur in Usmanabad district.

We have been funding a small joint replacement unit in Mumbai. Joint replacement such as knee, hip etc is a very expensive business. This unit is headed by an eminent orthopaedic surgeon who assesses a needy person. The surgeon gives his services free and the unit looks after the hospital and other ancillary expenses.

This, of course, is a short summary of the work over the last twenty years during which time we have not made any public appeals for the fund yet have managed to help to the tune of £15000..

The work is enormous and we are aware that what we do is but only a drop in the ocean yet we will carry on and look forward to many more people helping us to help those in need.