Who we are

Our Journey

Renowned economist and author of the definitive book, The Indian Economy, Prof. Ruddar Datt and his wife Smt. Raj Datt had a small dream, to share what they have with those who don’t. Little did they know then that it would grow and evolve, taking a life of its own. It began from a table in their house back in 1975. They bought a set of college course books and gave them to a student who couldn’t afford to buy them. That was the start of what would become the Young Scholars Book Bank, an initiative to support poor students to enable them in pursuing higher studies. Students could borrow books for the whole academic year at no cost, just on the trust that they return them at the end of the year for use by another student. Slowly the bank of books grew, and from the table, we now had ceiling high shelves in a room. In 1977, it was registered as a society under the Registration of Societies Act XXI (1860) as a voluntary non-government organization.

With the support of donations from friends and well-wishers, our work grew from strength to strength. We moved from a room full of books to a whole floor in the centrally located Kamla Nagar, adjacent to the University of Delhi. The learning needs of students also grew. With the increasing use of computers and the onset of internet, we knew we had to adapt. On the advice of the governing body of the Book Bank, the Young Scholars Educational Trust was registered as a separate legal body on 24th June 1996. In 1997, the Trust started the Young Scholars Computer Centre. As was with the Book Bank, our mission was to reach students from marginalized sections of society. The Centre hired faculty and created infrastructure of desktops to provide high quality computer training.

The experience of working closely with students from underprivileged backgrounds helped us to better understand their needs and the gaps in their education journey. We added English communication and typing classes to equip our students for the competitive job market.

The spirit of diversifying and extending our facilities to students from various marginalized sections continued. The World Health Organisation estimates that India is home to more than 60 million persons with blindness and low vision. A large majority do not have access to affordable assistive technologies to use digital content and also lack training avenues to learn about them. So, in 2015, we first educated ourselves about the tools and software (JAWS, NVDA etc.) that made computers accessible for the visually impaired. It was a learning curve that brought us close to a different community of students. We reached out to hostels in Delhi that house visually impaired students from across the country and were especially able to connect with many girl students keen to become digitally literate.

The Centre designed bespoke computer training courses for visually impaired students that are being taught by visually impaired faculty. These students come from economically weaker sections of society, and many are not proficient in English. To address this, special Hindi typing classes have also been started at the Centre. Over the past few years, we have also worked on converting print material to digital format making it accessible for the visually impaired. This entails digitizing course books and reference books to increase the repository of such material online that can be read with the help of screen reading software.

The small dream has sustained and grown over almost five decades because of the perseverance of a few and support of many who believe in it. The Centre and Book Bank have always depended on individual donations and we sincerely hope that they remain our co-travelers in the years ahead.