‘Community Connect Initiative’ to help the non-Kannadigas to learn Kannada

BENGALURU: The founders of Anvaya Foundation started a ‘Community Connect Initiative', called Kannada Kaliyona. This initiative helps a non-Kannadiga to become a Kannadiga by learning the Dravidian language. Sampath Ramanujan, the founder of Anvaya Foundation shared with the Nimma Uru Bengaluru team his vision behind starting this non-profit initiative.

“We started as Anvaya Foundation, seven years ago, and within Anvaya Foundation we have different initiatives. The initiatives mostly involve government schools, underprivileged sections of the society in the rural areas.”

He continued, “Teaching Kannada to non-Kannadigas is part of the ‘Community Connect Initiative’. There are lakhs of people that want to learn Kannada, and our goal is to help them learn the state’s native language.”

“The classes are free of cost, but in an attempt to make the learners take the classes seriously we collect a returnable deposit of Rupees 500. The course comprises six sessions of 90 minutes each. The last 30 minutes of each session is a practical component,” Ramanujan said.

“Now with the Covid-19 restrictions, we are conducting online classes. We have taught Kannada to 50 batches comprising of 2,800 students in the last year,” he added.

Ramanujan shared that they have around 60-65% people from other South Indian states who want to learn Kannada and around 35-40% people from the northern states. He shared that the South Indian students learn Kannada throughout the sessions.

While most of the students from North India tend to drop out after a term of two weeks. To prevent dropouts, the teachers talk with the North Indian students in Hindi so that they feel comfortable learning Kannada.

Ramanujan received the ‘Bengaluru Youth Award for Social Service’. And his wife Sridevi Shetty Sampath who is the Initiative Lead of Kannada Kaliyona received the ‘Radio City Woman Change Maker Award’.

Sridevi Shetty Sampath, the co-founder of the Anvaya Foundation has authored the book ‘Non-Kannadiga to Naanu Kannadiga’, which is used to teach Kannada.

Ramanujan shared, “My wife’s mother tongue is Tulu whereas mine is Tamil and we are teaching Kannada. South Indian languages are almost 3,000 years old and it is our objective to help these languages grow.”

He further said, “I personally know six languages and my wife knows eight languages. We believe that wherever we go we need to learn the language of that place. While staying in Hyderabad, I learned how to speak Telugu; and Hindi when I was in Chandigarh. Within six months of coming to Bengaluru, I learned Kannada, so I understand the struggles of non-Kannadigas while learning to speak the language.”

Talking about the books used to teach Kannada, he said, “Every year after successfully tutoring ten batches we release a new edition of our textbook, ‘Non-Kannadiga to Naanu Kannadiga’. Now we have completed tutoring 50 batches, so we are preparing to release a fifth edition of the book. The new changes in the book come from the feedback of the students. With every new edition, we try to make the syllabus easier to learn.”

He concluded by saying, “Our aim is aim non-Kannadigas to learn Kannada. Many individuals want Kannada, but we don’t have as many volunteers to teach them the language. So we need more volunteers who would want to teach Kannada to non-Kannadigas.”