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About Sneha School
Sneha School is the brainchild of Dr. Chandrashekhara Damle, who is the founder President of the school. We have been working for up-gradation of the standard of education at the primary and high school level by introducing innovative pedagogy for creative learning. We believe that the success of education lies in learning through thinking.
We strongly believe that a child can think in its mother tongue or in the neighborhood language better than in English. Many psychological studies also have supported the same and the recent National Education Policy also upholds this philosophy. Moreover, language is the vehicle of culture. Hence, we follow the local language that is Kannada as a medium of instruction in primary level (1 to 7th standard) and then help the children to transition into English medium from 8th standard. However, we teach English as a language from the first grade itself.
While it is important to stimulate the children intellectually, it is also important to nurture them spiritually and also help them to develop overall wellbeing. Therefore, we have created the learning environment in the lap of nature by using the topography as it is in most of the places so that the naturalness remains in the campus. Because of such initiatives, we have also been recognised as GREEN SCHOOL.
Children here are exposed to yoga, music, classical dance, environmental science through practical knowledge, herbal garden, traditional games, and so on. Thus, we focus on the all round personality development of the children.
We have been recognised and honored with several awards by the taluk, district, state administrations and some social organizations:
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Clean school for cleanliness by keeping plastic free campus,
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Green school for natural greenery with medicinal garden,
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Aranya Mitra Forest friendly school) for social forestry in campus,
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Jala Mitra (Water friendly school0 for water harvesting project,
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Best Teacher Award for extra-curricular activities,
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Kambara Award for Kannada medium education,
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Kannada Rajyotsava Award by Indian Medical Association Sullia,
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Sahitya Parishat Award (Taluk level) for creative literary activities,
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Education Department honored us for 100% in S.S.L.C.
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Best literary manuscripts awards continuously for 15 years.
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Many awards won by children in inter-school competitions annually.
Key People
Behind the School
President
DR. Chandrashekhara Damle
Basically, a Professor of Sociology Dr. Damle is an educationist, artist, and literary person. He has been the Founder President of the organization who is behind the all-round development of the Sneha campus and educational programs. He is honored with State Level ‘Best College Teacher Award’, ‘Out Standing Kannadiga’, ‘Aranya Mitra’ (friend of Forest) ‘Jalamitra’ (Friend of water) awards. He is a prolific writer and his latest popular book is “Don’t Say My Child is Mild”.
Vice President
S.k Anand Kumar
The proprietor of the ‘Master Plannery’ a large firm of builders and producers of building materials. He is an innovative engineer and has invented concood, an alternative to wood. Thus he has contributed to the saving of trees and environmental protection. He is Member of Executive Body of State Level Builders Association and has been honored with Vishweshwarayya Award by various Engineers’ associations at District and State level.
Secretary
DR. Vidyashambava Pare
Professor and Head, Department of Anatomy at K.V.G. Medical College, Sullia. Dr. Pare has served as a medical practitioner in rural areas. He is involved in agriculture with concern for the environment. He has been a resource person in various medical camps.
Director
SMT. Rekha Anand
Apart from being a Partner in Master Plannery Puttur and Administrative Director of New Line Industries, she is the Chief Executive Officer of the Sneha Multipurpose Cooperative Society at Puttur.
Director
DR. Girish Bharadwaj
Being a Leader in Rural connectivity by constructing nearly 150 suspension bridges across rivers in remote rural areas of various states in India Sri Bharadwaj is honored by ‘Padmashree’ award by the President of India. He has been an active Rotarian and served as Platoon Commander of Home Guards in Sullia. He has been honored by various organizations across the country for his yeoman service for social causes.
Director
Shrikar Damle
He is proprietor of Work Well Machine Tools at Mangalore and renowned entrepreneur in fixing Acoustics for sound proof in various industrial establishments. He is further interested in educational service being Administrative Director of Institute of Technical Training Centre. He is honoured by Central Public Centre Board of New Delhi for his acoustic works.
Head Mistress
SMT. Jayalaxmi Damle
Serving as Head Mistress of the schools from their inception, Smt Jayalaxmi Damle has given leadership to teachers in realizing the ‘Vision’ and ‘Mission’ of the school. She has encouraged extracurricular activities in the school and the literary volumes produced by children have successively won first prize at the district level for the last 15 years. She has published a collection of dramas “Hasire Usiru” and a collection of short stories “Krishnana Kathegalu”. She has been honored with State Level “Sandesh Best Teacher Award” and Kambara Award for service to the Kannada language.
Administrative officer
Akshara Damle, is a TEDx speaker and a psychologist and Founder of ManoSamvaada. He has been working with clients across the globe for more than 8 years.
As a therapist, he has been working with a wide range of clients going through different mental health issues including trauma, abuse and psychological shadows. He has also contributed as the Chief Counsellor and Trainer at Sahay, a mental health helpline, which was a part of COVID response, a national-level collective.
Being an NLP practitioner and having undergone a few more certifications, he has also been a trainer and a coach. He offers various training programs like stress management, conflict management, team building, and emotional intelligence in organizations. He has a wide variety of experience of working with Celebrities, IAS, IPS, IRS officers, government departments like police, income tax, education, and so on; startups and multinational companies (MNCs) in diverse sectors including IT, healthcare, consumer goods, automotive sector, and so on.
He is the author of 4 books and a columnist in leading newspapers. He is also an amateur Carnatic classical musician, an actor, and a storywriter.
He has been felicitated with ‘Leadership Award’ for his contribution in the area of mental health in 2019; 'Social Impact - Corona Warrior Award - 2020'; He has been featured on JioChat and various other Jio platforms as a mental health expert.
He is the first student of Sneha School and a proud alumnus.
Board of Advisors
Dedication. Expertise. Passion.
Arun Kashyap, an environmentalist and activist since 2005, has dedicated his life to safeguarding the planet and its inhabitants. Despite holding degrees in engineering and management, he has made significant contributions to the organic movement in India, the Philippines, and Canada. Collaborating with grassroots NGOs, he has empowered over a hundred thousand marginalized farmers in India and abroad to adopt sustainable farming and forest restoration practices. Arun has spearheaded projects to plant millions of native trees, maintaining biodiversity and ecosystems.
Growing up in the Himalayan forests, Arun developed a deep connection with nature. Despite facing challenges adapting to corporate culture for over eight years, he left the corporate world to serve society, nurturing his humanity and compassion. Volunteering with non-profit organizations, he tackled issues of extreme poverty and deforestation, launching campaigns to raise funds and collaborating with local NGOs to incentivize tree planting.
As an advocate for the environment and organic farming, Arun believes his mission, "Sustainable farming with forest restoration," can create positive global change. He has dedicated his savings to help underprivileged farmers and gained knowledge from global movements, eco-villages, green schools, and forestry projects. In his current role as an environmentalist, he travels extensively, promoting mindful natural resource use.
Through his involvement in various projects, he has gained valuable insights that have inspired him to pursue his dream of establishing a TRUE GREEN SCHOOL or GURUKUL in the future. He recognizes the need to rethink education, including fostering wisdom, promoting social living, and addressing issues of oppression and exploitation. He believes that education must be interactive, inclusive, dialogical, and compassionate, reconciling the disconnect between the mind, body, and soul. As humanity strives for sustainable development, educating each individual on caring for the environment that nurtures and sustains all living beings in balance is crucial in this new millennium.
Dr. Nagaraj K. Neerchal is a faculty member in the department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) since 1986. He obtained his PhD (1986) from Iowa State University, and his MS (1982) and BS (1981) in Statistics from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He was promoted to full professor in 1999. He has held several administrative positions including Graduate Program Director of Applied Mathematics and Statistics (1995-1999), Interim Chair (1999-2000) and Chair (2006-2016) of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (1999-2000), and most recently (1999-2021) as the Vice Chancellor of Chinmaya University (CVV) a Deemed-To-Be University of the De Novo category located in Kochi, India. He is the founding director of Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Consulting (CIRC).
Dr. Neerchal’s research interests lie in modeling correlated data collected over time or/and in clusters, statistical computing and more recently in parallel computing relevant to implementation of statistical methods in large data sets. Dr. Neerchal has authored more than 70 publications. He is the co-author of two widely cited books in Statistics: Environmental Statistics using S-PLUS (2000) and Overdispersion Models in SAS (2011). He has mentored 16 Ph.D. students, four M.S. students and many undergraduate independent study courses.
Dr. Neerchal received the Distinguished Achievement Award and Medal from the American Statistical Association's Section on Statistics and the Environment in 2000. He was elected Fellow of American Statistical Association in 2010. He received the University System of Maryland Award for Innovation Excellence in 2013. He was also the winner of the inaugural Freeman Hrabowski Innovation Grants Award for Founding “The Math Gym.”Dr. Neerchal has served in numerous committees at the department, UMBC, USM as well as American Statistical Association levels.
Dr. Neerchal hails from hamlet of Neerchal, Kasaragod District, Kerala State. He holds Indian art, culture, particularly Yakshagana, and study of Vedanta in high regard. He, along with his wife Chetana, are associated with the activities of Chinmaya Mission Washington Regional Center for more than 20 years. He and his wife Smt. Chetana Have already sponsored education of two poor children in our school.
Shanthi Tantry - born in Mangaluru, has been living in Maryland, USA from the past 27 years.
Her core interest lies in the study of Sanatana Dharma, Samskritam, and in interacting with children studying the Bhaaratiiya Samskriti in USA. She is the founder director of Vidya-Niketanam Incorporated, an organization that has continued to impart the knowledge of Sanatana Dharma to children in USA for the past 19 years.
Shanthi has learned the art of Yakshagana (thenku thittu style) from her father Sri K Chandrashekar Rao, and has enacted in Yakshagana Prasangas from the age of 9, and continues to act and direct Prasanga performances for both children and adults.
She works for the University of Maryland as an Accounting Analyst and lives in Ellicott City with her husband Dr. Udaya Tantry. Her daughter Lekha Tantry shares her passion for art and theatre.
Sri Chandrashekhar RN is a staunch fighter for Kannada and for Kannadigas. He has served in Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) Bengaluru for 37 years where he established a literary organization to conduct cultural programmes and publications of prominent literary works. He is the founder secretary of Kannada Geleyara Balaga since 1986 which has a very wide range membership. He has served in several selection committees of Kannada and Culture department and Kannada Development Authority of Karnataka State.
He has been a natural choice in Bengaluru to convene several literary programmes due to his organizing skills. He is credited to have 21 own publications apart from being the editor for several books and honorary volumes. He is honored with awards by different organizations across Karnataka and in Delhi. He is a fond friend of Sneha Shikshana Samsthe for many years.
Panambur Vasudeva Aithala
Vasu Aithala, native of Panambur, after completing Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Karnataka Polytechnic had a satisfying career in Oil & Gas industry. After working in India for 7 years, he worked over 31 years overseas which included the Middle East, Far East and the United States of America. After 27 years of service in the USA, he voluntarily retired in 2021 and moved back to India with the intention of helping underprivileged children who were deprived of any education during the Pandemic.
Vasu Aithala is the founder and Managing trustee of Vidyagama Trust. Facilitating continued learning during COVID mandatory school closures, helping underserved schools to make up for the learning losses post pandemic closures by providing guest teachers and learning material, facilitating training to Primary school teachers on use of Teaching and Learning Material (TLM) thereby making Math learning easier are some of the initiatives undertaken by Vidyagama Trust.
In 2023, Vidyagama trust in coordination with the Education department has launched 2-day hands on workshops for 1st-3rd grade (Nali Kali) teachers with the goal of achieving 100% Foundational Literacy and Numeracy (FLN) in the district by 2026.
Vasu Aithala joined hands with Mangalore based NGO “Sahayadri Sanchaya” in facilitating all round development of children from tribal communities dwelling deep in the forests of Uttara Kannada district. This campaign named “Vana Chethana” has benefitted over 2000 children in last 3 years.
Being an ardent lover of Yakshagana, traditional theater of Karnataka, Vasu Aithala has helped popularize Yakshagana over two decades in the United States. Besides actively organizing performances by professional artists visiting from India as well as local amateur artists, he has been actively involved in professional artists welfare projects through Yakshagana Kalaranga, Udipi.
Currently he leads an ambitious campaign “Yakshadhruva Yakshashikshana” that offers free Yakshagana training to High School students of Dakshina Kannada district organized by Yakshadhruva Patla Foundation.
Vasu Aithala is a member of the board of trustees and secretary of Hoysala, a charitable trust based in Houston, Texas USA. Hoysala helps link donors in the USA with deserving beneficiaries in Karnataka to support art, culture and education.
Smt. Meenakshi, his wife, has been always a supporting participant in all social and philanthropic activities of Sri Vasu Aithala. The couple have visited our school and have extended support for our activities.