Samdhi
From www.lokniketan.org
The insitution Lokniketan being situated in Palanpur taluka, it is quite natural that we would look more to this taluka for the development of our work. In the south-western part of this taluka there is Samadhi village. Major part of the population is that of the Thakore community, which is very backward educationally and economically. Ignorance, superstitions, conservatism and the addiction of drinking reign supreme there permanently and illiteracy and poverty sustain there each other.
Our conception has always been to light a lamp in a dark corner. This village and the surrounding ones are being such a dark corner, and accepting the request of me village leaders Shri Versibhai Desai, Shri Babubhai Shah and Shri Mandji Thakor, we started a post basic school in Samadhi on 18-6-1983 with Std. VIII, | 
|
The school began in the sarai of the Shiv temple. As the local children had no facility in their homes to do their home work at night, we started a night chhatralaya in the sarai. All the children used to come there after their evening meals. There they said their prayer together and then did their reading and writing. They got up early in the morning, said their prayers, finished their morning calls and then did their study. At eight a.m. they went home.
There were some harijan boys in the school and they also came there at night for their study. Coming to know of this, some orthodox people in the village began a whispering campaign to vitiate the atmosphere. To overcome this trouble and to clear their misunderstanding, we had a dialogue with them, it was a sort of informal folk-education there. There was discussion with some people while persuasion with some others. As a result of our peaceful positive approach, their resistance was calmed down.
A beautiful, spacious school building being constructed within a period of three years, the school was shifted there. The school campus looks attractive on account of many colourful flower-plants and creepers, as also big trees grown all around.
The school started with 22 boys in 1983 has now, in the year 2000, 117 boys and 11 girls getting their education there. As a result of the devoted work of the principal and the teachers, the result of the S.S.C. Examination was 64% for the first S.S.C. batch, and it was 66.8% in the year 2000.
There is no chhatralaya attached to this Vidyalaya, because the Social Welfare Department has ceased to give permission for opening such new chhatralayas, while the economic condition of the people in the surrounding villages is not so good that they send their pupils in the chhatralaya at their own full cost. The people wish very much that the government change their present policy.