From First Standard to Graduate: A Renovated Centre, And the Boy Who Came Back

Bengaluru, 20 June 2026

            On Saturday, 20 June 2026, Fr. Bosco Ponthokkan SDB, Rector of Kristu Jyoti College and President of the Social Service Guild (SSG), blessed the renovated Don Bosco Learning and Activity Centre at Swathantranagara. The hall was full. The benefactors, Ms. Gina and Dr. Jaison of Gina Engineering Pvt. Ltd., were present, along with well-known figures from the village, the first-year students of theology of Kristu Jyoti College, who run the centres, and the children with their parents.

            But the new roof was not what stood out. What stood out were the testimonies. The centerpiece was Mr. Roshan, a young man who first walked into that centre in first standard, sat on that very floor evening after evening, and has now completed his degree. In the same hall where it all began, Roshan rose and spoke to the children gathered there. The achievement had walked up and spoken for itself. Ms. Kamakshi, one of the teachers, then told the same story from the other side: she too had grown up at the centre as a child, and now teaches in the place that once held her. Two of the present students thanked Gina Engineering for making this space, once again, “a place worthy of its name.”

            Two leading residents, Mr. Ramakrishna and Mr. Balakrishna, spoke briefly on the history of the place. The centre building was put up in 2003, and over the years, they said, Kristu Jyoti College and the SSG have become part of the very fabric of the village, continuing to form and shape the lives of its young people to this day.

            Swathantranagara is one of nine urban villages in the K R Puram belt where the SSG runs its Learning and Activity Centres. Together with two crèche centres, these reach close to 400 children from marginalized families, with daily evening tuition, value education, nutrition, and weekend programmes. The renovation expanded and re-roofed the main hall and added fresh plastering, new windows, additional toilets, new electrical wiring and fixtures, structural repairs, and a fresh coat of paint. The work was made possible through the generosity of Mrs. Gina, Dr. Jaison, Ms. Latha and Mr. Tom, whose contribution was channeled through BREADS.

            There is something very old at the heart of this. In 1846, after his oratory had wandered for months from field to field with nowhere to settle, Don Bosco was given a poor shed at Valdocco, low and damp. He had it dug out and made it the first home of the Oratory. The Salesian family itself began in the renovation of a shed, so that the young would have somewhere to stay. At Swathantranagara we have done nothing new. We have done the oldest thing we know: not given children four better walls, but given them, once again, a place worth staying in.

            Don Bosco said it is not enough to love the young; they must know they are loved. A roof that holds is one way they come to know it. A graduate who returns to say so is how we know it has worked. The hall was not renovated for one Saturday evening. It was renovated so that, twenty years from now, another child from first standard may stand where Roshan stood, and tell the next set of children that this place held them too.