De Nobili School, Dhanbad, Jharkhand

Education for the next generation

For Anurag, Kusuma Trust’s Co-Founder, part of giving back to society is about looking back to your roots. “I believe it’s important to contribute to things that have enabled us to reach where we are.” For Anurag, the De Nobili School inthe district of Dhanbad in Jharkhand, India, is a key part of his journey to success.

“I only ever went to one school and was a student at De Nobili from aged five to 18,” says Anurag. “It was a great school with a relatively liberal and thorough teaching style. Being part of the Jesuit school system, it always made us aware to remember and be of service to others less fortunate in society.”

We awarded a grant of £440,480 in 2008 to build a new De Nobili School in Dhanbad.
De Nobili are responsible for nine English schools and four Hindi schools in the Districts of Dhanbad and Bokaro of Jharkhand. There are more than 17,000 students studying in these schools with more than 500 teaching and 300 non-teaching staff members.

Transforming children’s lives

When Former Principal, the late Father Hess, told Anurag about the plans for a new school campus he was keen to be involved. “Building a new school would increase coverage of the De Nobili School system, which operates in the various mining towns in the region, and I was glad to have this opportunity,” he says. “Father Hess was a remarkable man, an American Jesuit priest, who relocated to India in 1952 and devoted his life towards expanding quality education in the country.”

The Kusuma Trust awarded a grant of £440,480 to buy the 17 acres of land and build the new school campus, which was completed in 2009. The school has large classrooms, a library and reading room, a canteen and a common room.

“We believe the new school will transform the lives of children in my hometown for generations to come,” says Anurag. “It will provide them with the opportunity to obtain a high standard of learning and better scope for employment and eventual prosperity.”