Quality Teachers
Trained, dedicated tutors placed inside adopted classrooms — bringing consistency to schools long without it.
Coming Soon
This July, The Flag Rises Over Gadag.
A town with six centuries of teaching heritage — Kumaravyasa's Gadugina Bharata in 1430, Ganayogi Gavai's school in 1892, and now, Akshara Daana in 2026.
Our Work
Our Areas of Impact.
Six deliberate lines of work — each grounded in what rural Karnataka schools have asked us for, year after year.
Digital Learning & ETM Labs
Education Technology Matters labs — computer education and smart classrooms that close the urban–rural learning gap.
School Improvement Projects
Restoring classrooms, repairing roofs, painting walls, waterproofing — the quiet infrastructure that lets learning happen.
Educational Resources
New desks, notebooks, textbooks, uniforms and 200+ laboratory kits — everything a child needs to arrive ready to learn.
Hygiene & Sanitation
Hygienic toilets, filtered drinking water and safe sanitary blocks — the dignity work that keeps girls, especially, in school.
Student Development
Playgrounds, play equipment, sports, arts and confidence-building — an education that goes beyond the textbook.
About Akshara Daana
Akshara Daana — Education Initiative.
The Vision of Smt. Revathi Kamath
Akshara Daana is a visionary initiative conceived by Smt. Revathi Kamath with the noble mission of transforming rural education through the collective power of community participation and crowdfunding. The initiative believes that when people come together with a shared purpose, even small contributions can create a lasting impact on the lives of thousands of children.
Over the past six years, Smt. Revathi Kamath has been working tirelessly for underprivileged rural schools across Karnataka. Her efforts have focused on providing quality educational infrastructure and creating a better learning environment for children. The initiative has undertaken the construction of toilets, repair of damaged walls, windows, doors and flooring, waterproofing of school buildings, rectification of water leakages, improvement of drinking water facilities, and development of school playgrounds.
Akshara Daana has also introduced modern educational facilities by providing children’s play equipment, digital classrooms, projectors, computers, and improved teaching resources. Better-quality teacher training programmes have been organised to enhance classroom learning. A mobile science laboratory has been introduced to reach schools in remote areas, enabling practical, hands-on learning experiences. More than 200 laboratory kits and science learning materials have already been distributed to schools.
Jump to:
Before
After
Halegere Village School
Karnataka
From cracked walls, unsafe roofing and broken sanitation to a fully restored campus — safe classrooms, filtered drinking water and dedicated teachers.
The Reality
Before Smt. Revathi Kamath's arrival — Halegere Village School
The Journey
School restoration work in progress
The Dream
After successful restoration
200+ laboratory kits distributed. Countless smiles restored.
Add your drop — and watch the next school transform.
Having worked extensively at the grassroots level, Smt. Revathi Kamath realised that the need is far greater than what one individual or organisation can achieve alone. This inspired her to create Akshara Patra, a people’s movement that encourages every individual to participate in rebuilding rural education — not only across Karnataka but eventually throughout India and beyond.
Her heartfelt appeal is simple: every person can contribute an affordable amount, and together these small contributions can transform hundreds of government schools that are presently in a state of neglect into safe, functional, and inspiring centres of learning.
She firmly believes in the timeless principle:
“Every drop makes an ocean.”
If each one of us becomes that single drop, together we can create an ocean of opportunities for millions of children. By educating a child, we strengthen a family; by strengthening families, we build a stronger nation.
Smt. Revathi Kamath has observed that many children of daily-wage labourers remain trapped in the same cycle of poverty because they lack access to quality education. Labourers’ children often become labourers, drivers’ children become drivers — not because of lack of ability, but because they lack educational opportunities. Akshara Daana seeks to break this cycle and empower every child with the gift of education.
Helping one child uplifts an entire family. Helping one school transforms an entire community.
“Vidyādhanam Sarva Dhanam Pradhānam.”
The gift of education is the greatest of all gifts.
Let us join hands to create educated, empowered and responsible citizens. Together, we can build a brighter future for our children, our communities, and our nation.
Become a Visionary
Karnataka Kalashree Awardee
Smt. Revathi Kamath
Founder · Akshara Daana
Philanthropist · Entrepreneur · Environmentalist
“Education is the most sustainable form of social transformation.”
The Founder
Smt. Revathi Kamath, Founder — Akshara Daana.
Smt. Revathi Kamath is a Karnataka Kalashree awardee, honoured by the state for a lifetime of contribution to the arts. She is also an entrepreneur, environmentalist and philanthropist whose work over three decades has moved fluently between the classical arts, dignified livelihoods, community-led ecology and, most recently, rural education.
For the past six years she has committed her time, resources and personal presence to rural schools across Karnataka — walking classrooms, sitting with teachers, meeting parents, and building small, measurable improvements at each village school she adopts. Her belief is that transformation is slow, granular and school-by-school — not a headline event.
Akshara Daana is her current, focused chapter. It carries forward everything she has learned across music, business, community work and public service: that lasting change is made by people who show up patiently, over years, and treat the villages they work with as equal partners.
Karnataka Kalashree
State recognition for lifetime contribution to arts and culture.
Philanthropist
Six years of full-time work in rural Karnataka schools.
Entrepreneur
Enterprises built around women, artisans and first-generation earners.
Environmentalist
Sustained community-led ecological work across the state.
Her Journey · Four Chapters
A life told in four unhurried chapters.
೧
Chapter
Music, Culture & the Arts
Trained in Karnatik music and steeped in the classical arts from childhood, Smt. Revathi Kamath grew up inside the disciplines of raga, laya and craft. That grounding in tradition — patient, rigorous, respectful of teachers — became the tone of everything she later built.
೨
Chapter
Enterprise & Livelihoods
As an entrepreneur, she has built enterprises that place women, rural artisans and first-generation earners at the centre. Her conviction — dignified work first, everything else after — has shaped a career that treats livelihood as the foundation of every social gain.
೩
Chapter
Environment & Community
Alongside her cultural and business work she has driven long-running community and environmental initiatives across Karnataka — reforestation drives, water-body restoration, and public-space revival — always in partnership with local villages and gram panchayats, never above them.
೪
Chapter
Rural Education — the Current Chapter
Akshara Daana is her present focus. A full-time commitment to Karnataka's rural schools: bringing quality teachers, safe classrooms, hygiene, digital learning and dignity to children who have long been asked to make do with less.
— The current chapter of a lifetime of service. —
0+
Years of Work
0
Visionaries (of 100)
0
Schools Adopted
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Districts Served
Join Our Mission
Join our Mission to Save Learning.
With your help we can break cycles of neglect, build stable schools, and ensure dignity and hope for children who have long been asked to make do with less.
- Safe classrooms & sanitation
- Quality teachers in every school
- Community-first partnerships
- Long-term, transparent support
Works Under Progress
Fund the Halegere worksHalegere School — Our Current Project.
Halegere Village, Basaralu Hobli, Mandya Taluk & District — 571446, Karnataka
Parinitha Aided Higher Primary School is the school Akshara Daana is currently rebuilding. Three new classrooms, hygienic toilets, RO drinking water, a revived playground and salary support for teachers — a full-scope adoption in motion.
What we’re doing at Halegere
Live · Under Progress- Three new classroomsBeing built for Standards 8, 9 and 10.
- 25 child-friendly toilets10 for boys, 10 for girls, plus separate toilets for teachers.
- 20-ft handwash sinkA central sanitation block with running water.
- RO water purifier250-student capacity with two years of maintenance included.
- Playground developmentGround formation, and repair & repainting of existing play equipment.
- Salary support for 2 teachersEnsuring consistent, quality teaching for a full academic year.
- Salary support for 2 attendersSupporting the non-teaching staff who keep the school running.
Impact
Help us write moreStories of Change.
Early sketches from the schools we work in — the fuller telling still to come. What the students, teachers and parents say, in their own words.
In their words · Student
“I came back to school when the bathrooms worked. That is the whole story.”
Halegere Village School
In their words · Teacher
“I used to teach four grades in one room. Now each grade has its own teacher and dignity.”
Besagara Halli Village School
In their words · Parent
“My daughter opens the computer with the same confidence a city child does. That is worth everything.”
Naganayakanahalli Village School
Flagging off · July 2026 Gadag, North Karnataka
A town that has taught India for six centuries — welcoming a new chapter.
Gadag is not new to learning. It has been a seat of poetry, music and rigorous instruction long before us. When Akshara Daana opens here this July, professors, educationists, doctors and public figures will stand with us. The town’s heritage will hold the door open.
- ೧೪೩೦1430 CE
Kumaravyasa composes the Gadugina Bharata
At the Veeranarayana temple in Gadag, Kumaravyasa completes the Karnata Bharata Kathamanjari — Karnataka's most beloved retelling of the Mahabharata.
- ೧೮೯೨1892 CE
Ganayogi Panchakshari Gavai's school for blind children
In Gadag, the blind saint-musician Panchakshari Gavai establishes one of the first residential music and academic schools for visually-impaired children in India.
- ೨೦೨೬2026 CE
Akshara Daana arrives in Gadag
The flag rises this July. Professors, educationists, doctors and public figures gather to open our new chapter in a land that has taught India for six centuries.
Professors
Academic guidance from Karnataka's top universities
Doctors
A rural school health partnership
Public Figures
Voices from music, cinema and civic life
Why Akshara Daana
Why Akshara Daana?
We are a small, unhurried project. What we can promise is transparency, patience and presence — and a rare refusal to look away when the work gets slow or unglamorous.
Radical Transparency
Every rupee is accounted for. Fund utilisation is published, and every donor receives regular, plain-language updates from the field.
Ground-Level Implementation
We do not sub-contract impact. Our team lives inside the schools we adopt, visits weekly, and reports back to donors school by school.
Long-Term Adoption Model
We do not do one-off drives. Each adopted school is a multi-year commitment — teachers, hygiene, teaching aids and monitoring — for as long as it takes.
Community as Partner
The gram panchayat, headmaster, teachers and parents are our partners — not our beneficiaries. Every intervention is co-designed on the ground.
Get Involved
Join the first 100 Visionaries.
A founding circle of a hundred people committing a small, steady amount every month. That is how we will fund a decade of rural education — patiently, honestly, together.
Progress
32 / 100
visionaries joined so far
32%
₹950 / month
India
Most Chosen
$10 / month
Worldwide
One-time Gift
Any amount
Our promise
- 100% focused on educational impact
- Transparent fund utilisation, published quarterly
- Ground-level implementation with named schools
- Regular updates to every donor
Get Involved
Four ways to Stand With Us.
Donate
₹950 / $10 a month or a one-time gift — funds go straight to adopted schools with quarterly transparency reports.
Give now
Volunteer
Field visits, teaching support, translation, design, storytelling — join the circle in whichever way fits your life.
Sign up
Institutional Partnership
Schools, corporates and trusts partner with us on named school adoption, ETM labs and hygiene programmes.
Talk to us
Amplify our voice
Share our stories, tag us in your network, write about the work. Awareness is oxygen for a small NGO.
Follow
Our Core Team
The Hands Behind the Movement.
A diverse collective of visionary leaders and ground-team members, working closely to build an ethical philanthropic movement across rural Karnataka.
Anitha Dasappa
Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Environmental Engineer with over 25 years of experience across the government and non-government sectors. A dedicated education advocate committed to advancing equitable opportunities and empowering communities through education. Working alongside founder Mrs. Revathi Kamath, she provides strategic leadership in expanding educational initiatives.
Dr. Dayaprasad G Kulkarni
Founder & Director · AarogyaSeva and The Billion Hopes Philanthropic Fund
Public health expert and visionary leader dedicated to grassroots social transformation and universal healthcare access across underserved regions.
Manu Gowda
Lead Member, Akshara Daana
Entrepreneur, educationist, environmentalist and social changemaker committed to creating a greener, more sustainable and knowledge-driven society. Actively involved in educational initiatives, lake rejuvenation, afforestation and community development projects.
Navya Raju
Architect & Sustainability
Harvard GSD specialist working on measurable impact and ecological school restoration — bringing sustainable design thinking to every school Akshara Daana adopts.
B.R. Naveen Krishna
Education Innovator & Growth Leader
With 16+ years of experience, Naveen is deeply committed to reimagining education for the 21st century. He creates future-ready learning ecosystems that combine human values and digital innovation to unlock the full potential of every child.
Dr. Abhinandan
PR & Media
With 10+ years as a Professor and a member of the Senate, Dr. Abhinandan has been associated with students for nearly two decades. He leads PR and media for Akshara Daana — telling the story of every school, every teacher and every child we serve.
Add your hands to the movement.
Volunteers, field partners, teachers, donors and well-wishers — we welcome every kind of contribution to rural education.
Testimonials
Voices of our Well-Wishers.
Hear from the people who make our work possible.
AP
Prof. Dr. Arcot Purna Prasad
Director, CMR University
“Akshara Daana treats rural children with genuine respect — not as recipients, but as protagonists of their own learning. It is a rare, values-led initiative worth every bit of its ambition.”
BB
Dr. Balbir Singh Bedi
Homoeopathy Physician & Writer
“What Karnataka Kalashree Smt. Revathi Kamath has built here is rare — a patient, transparent programme that will outlast every trend. I stand with this work wholeheartedly.”
SG
Dr. Smrite Goudhaman
Adjunct Professor, Golden Gate University
“Akshara Daana is not charity — it is a partnership with rural schools, teachers and children. Its long view of what a village school can become is exactly what India needs more of.”
Media
Akshara Daana in the News.
- Nov 20, 2025Rural school restoration at Naganayakanahalli — a case study in patient work
- Oct 12, 2025Karnataka Kalashree honour recognises decades of arts and social work by Smt. Revathi Kamath
- Sep 04, 2025How Akshara Daana adopts a school — a step-by-step field note
- Aug 15, 2025Gadag chapter announcement — Akshara Daana to open its next district in July 2026
- Jun 02, 2025Halegere School reopens: from broken sanitation to a full restoration
Backed By
Our Supporters.
Institutional partners, community trusts and long-standing well-wishers who stand with us.
AarogyaSeva Foundation
Karnataka Education Dept.
Rotary Club Placeholder
Local School Consortium
Gadag District Admin.
Panchakshari Trust
Kannada Sahitya Parishat
IIM Alumni Circle
AarogyaSeva Foundation
Karnataka Education Dept.
Rotary Club Placeholder
Local School Consortium
Gadag District Admin.
Panchakshari Trust
Kannada Sahitya Parishat
IIM Alumni Circle
Contact
Write to us. We reply.
Whether you would like to volunteer, donate, host us at your school, or simply learn more — this is where a real conversation begins.
Bengaluru HQ
#44, Kamath House,
Classic Orchards Layout, Kalena Agrahara,
Kothnur, Bengaluru — 560076
Classic Orchards Layout, Kalena Agrahara,
Kothnur, Bengaluru — 560076
