A Philanthropist, Raja Ram Bhandari’s life was a roller coaster ride and amidst all the turmoil, he chose the service of humanity as the sole aim of his life. He urges everyone to stay together with their families and take care of each other to make this planet a better place to live.

Raja Ram Bhandari is the Secretary of an NGO called ‘Prachya Shodh Peeth Samiti’ in Udaipur. He runs a school and ashram for the mentally challenged, intellectually disabled, autistic, cerebral palsy afflicted, and multiple disabled children. He tries his best to connect these children with the mainstream of families and society.

Raja Ram belongs to Udaipur. He studied at St. Paul’s School and Kendriya Vidyalaya in Udaipur. He says that one of his teachers pushed him towards drawing and painting as he wanted to see him do something big in the field of arts. So, he got Raja Ram enrolled at NavBharat School for a three-year Diploma in Arts. After a year, he cracked the entrance exam of Sir J.J Institute of Applied Arts College in Mumbai and went there to learn art.

Moving there, he had a lot of trouble adapting to the new and different environment and faced many struggles. Distressed, he thought of coming back to Udaipur and living with his mother, as she was alone. But he remained firm to fulfill his teacher’s dream. Then, at his teacher’s behest, he learned the Marathi language within six months and slowly he made friends there. Eventually, his interest in that course also started increasing. In his second year, he started working at a design house but his dedication to his studies never compromised. With a lot of hard work, he completed his three-year graduation in Applied Arts from there and came back to Udaipur.

When his teacher saw that his work was not appreciated here, he sent Raja Ram back to Mumbai. He studied further for three years at the same college and specialized in painting and printing. Alongside studies, he did photography, design work for prominent hotel brands and MNCs, and painting work in the studios of Goregaon film city. Shortly after, he got painting and designing work in Udaipur and settled down here permanently. He even tried his hand at the mining work near Udaipur. After a couple of years, he came out of that business and joined the education line as his wife was running a school.

Soon, Raja Ram converted that ordinary school into a school for specially-abled children after conducting a successful workshop. Further, to expand the scope of his work and to legalize it, he got that school registered as a Trust in the year 2000. Later, he also got involved in skill development programs and workshops and grew tremendously. He claims that without any government funding, he took huge land only based on private donations and developed an old age home and orphanage there. Presently, he is working on a huge project in which he has got two hundred and fifty  local artisans associated with him.

Recalling his childhood, Raja Ram says that his father had died when he was young. Due to this, his mother struggled a lot to bring him up. He says that he was a disciplined kid as a child and was good at studies as well as sports. He was even a state and national-level player in sports. For this reason, he was the favorite of his teachers throughout. He says that he had suffered a lot in school due to being poor in mathematics and so was trained by his teachers in drawing and painting even though it was not his subject.

Describing his struggles, Raja Ram says that the mine in which he had invested his money had gone under the jurisdiction of the forest department and all his money was lost in it. He fought a civil battle with the department for years and after a lot of struggle, he succeeded in freeing his mine. Besides, opening a trust for mentally challenged and specially-abled children and taking it to a bigger level had been no less than a challenge for him.

Between education and experience, Raja Ram opines that experience is more important than education. Education only gives you basic knowledge about anything, but experience has the power to make you reach your desired destination in life. He also believes that it is the experience that helps us build attitude, aptitude, and personality to grow professionally as well as personally.

Raja Ram advises everyone that we should pay attention to specially-abled children and help them become self-dependent for the overall growth of the country. He requests us to help our country develop at a faster pace so that India can once again rise above all countries as it used to be when it was called the ‘Golden Bird.’

Raja Ram advises people who are interested in working in the field of NGOs or Trusts, that first of all you should be sensitive to your subject and should stay at the ground level to work closely with the children. In addition to this, your passion and enthusiasm to work in this field will surely help you reach your destination.

Raja Ram pleads everyone to take the initiative to help at least one needy child and make them employable because by doing this you will be helping not only that child but his entire family and in return, all their blessings will bring you progress and prosperity in your life.