Remembering St. Vincent's

Email from Ravi Kant to Ravi Kant Rai

Dear Ravi,

I was in Class 9 A which was Brother Hughes Class. I remember my Batchmates were Ritesh Rathore, Bhavin Jani, Sanjay Keskar , Dokanaia, Prayog and Pragyan Rana,Gautam Khanna, Subhashish Ganguly, Vivek Agrawal, Rahul Kakar Satya Brat Singh,Lal Chakroborti etc.

Mr Singh and Mrs Singh were my class teacher in Clas 6,7,8 and Paula Ghosh in Class 5 and Johnny sir in class 4 ,Mrs Chatterjee in class 3 and i cant remember class 2.

I was in class of Brother Hughes class in 9A and you know i was among the 19 students he did not promote that year to class 10. He was a terror , but i have very sweet memories of his class. One day while teaching us geometry he called me to the Blackboard and drew a Quadrilateral and asked me what the figure was . He of course had the cane in his hand and that day he had a Hair cut.When he had the haircut he used to look a real terror. I was so terrorised that i said the figure was a square and i at once got 2 cane. He again asked me what was the figure called i said rhombus and i again got 2 canes .that day i did not remember how many canes i got.

Of course i am forever debted to him for improving my hand writing.

Presently I am in New Delhi and founder Executive Director of Shakti Vahini which works in the field of HIV/AIDS, Anti Trafficking, Human Rights, Legal AID, Child Rights Media Advocacy ,Female Foeticide etc.

We work with all UN agencies like UNDP , UNIFEM, UNICEF ,UNFPA and also with many state govt as well as the central Govt.

We are also partners with the Department of State US Govt , Office to monitor Trafficking . they are supporting our fight aginst the various organised trafficking rackets in India.In 2005 the US Trafficking in Persons Report recognised Shakti Vahini work in India and mentioned it as International Best Practices.

Also we conduct lot of Police Training on Gender Rights and Juvenile Rights.We have been instrumental in saving hundreds of minor girls from various Brothels in India.

You can visit our website which is www.shaktivahini.org

Returning back to Vincents it was a great time we spent together and whatever we all are today it was our school St Vincents that nurtured and Shaped us.

Some of the grop photos which have been posted are still with me in the annual Report of St vIncents which is a treasured copy .

Will be in touch and once again three cheers for St Vincents.

Ravi Kant