Who are the Santals?
Today, 10+ million Santals live across 4 northern Indian states—making them the third largest tribe in modern-day India and the largest tribe in West Bengal.
Most Santal adults are day laborers, who do not own land and marry young.
Despite the deeply-routed caste prejudices against tribal peoples and being born into abject poverty, we found the Santal children to be welcoming, eager to learn, hard-working, grateful and joyful.
The tribe is known for its beautiful dances, music and singing. The children learn from tribal celebrations, their teachers and one another—and they practice regularly at the schools, where cultural development is built into the week’s learning. They loved to dance with us!
Historically, Santal children have not done well in public schools because of caste prejudice and because they do not speak the state language. The children, who speak the tribal language of Santali, are taught by educators who do not know their language.
The literacy rate among Santals in their second language (state language) is only 25-50%, despite it being “taught in primary schools.”
The conflict between the state’s policy of assimilating minorities into the mainstream culture and the tribal people’s reluctance to abandon their identity creates a fierce dilemma for the Santal children. Forced to reject their own culture to succeed, there are high dropout rates, low educational aspirations and worst of all, degraded self-esteem and loss of dignity.
Driven by their vocation to social justice and education for the poor, the Jesuits persevered and eventually learned the Santali language. This simple show of respect—being willing to communicate with them—began to break down the barriers. Soon children began to come to school.
Located some 40 miles outside of Kolkata, India
Gurap is a rural, agricultural village in the Hugli district of West Bengal that is home to one of the seven schools of the Jesuits of West Bengal dedicated to the education of Santal children.
Founder, President
Annette was raised to believe in the power of education to open roads to a more prosperous life. She has shared her love of learning and advocated for children throughout her adult life. In 2008, the Venables Family became a foster family and Annette became an active Board member of the Marin Foster Care Association, where she served as president for nearly 4 years and continues today as an advisor.
She has volunteered in a broad range of roles to support local and international education and social service organizations including: Kiddo!, Strawberry Point PTA, Tam High Foundation, St Vincent de Paul Society, 10,000 Degrees, SF/Marin Food Bank, St Ignatius Church SF food kitchen, Mary’s Meals and Haiti on the Rise.
Annette is a licensed California elementary school teacher, who earned her MS Ed in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College in New York City and her undergraduate degree at Fairfield University. Annette and Paul reside in beautiful Mill Valley, California and are the proud parents of two newly-launched, compassionate and intelligent young women.
Founder and CFO
Paul is also the Founder and Chairman of independent advertising agency Venables Bell + Partners (VB&P) in San Francisco. Under Paul’s leadership, the agency has attracted exceptional brand clients including Audi, Chipotle, Reebok and 3M, as well as engaged in meaningful pro bono work, including a wildly effective anti-meth campaign.VB&P has also achieved great success, including earning the world’s most prestigious advertising award, the Titanium Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity for its groundbreaking #OptOutside effort for client REI. VB&P was also named Adweek’s Breakthrough Agency of the Year in 2016, one of AdAge’s top 10 US agencies and one of its Best Places to Work in 2016, and was included in Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list in 2017.
Paul is a recipient of the Hal Riney Icons of Marketing award for his career accomplishments and significant influence on the industry, and was honored as one of the 100 People Who Make Advertising Great by the 4A’s. Paul’s been a board member for the March of Dimes, and is one of the founding members of SchoolsRule, a foundation that works to close education inequality gaps and to support every child in public school in Marin County. In his free time, Paul created a service and faith sharing organization called Random Acts of Catholics (RAOC) and will occasionally play “old man” softball. He was raised in Stratford, Connecticut and is a graduate of the University of Connecticut.
Annette Venables
Ashley Watts
Barbara Chambers
Catherine Greene
David Spencer
Justin deTray
Jeanne Jefferies
Kalpana Reddy
Lily O’Neill
Monjula Chidambaram
Paul Venables
Shonalie Guinney
Advisors
Fr. Patrick Michaels
Fr. Maria Joseph Savariappan SJ
Ashley Hurd
Richard Spotswood
Intern
Prianca Sharan
(so far)
By Annette Venables, March 2022
As I stood on the steps of our church, Our Lady of Mt Carmel in Mill Valley, CA (OLMC), and said, “Sure, I’ll go to India!” I was prompted to look around and see who was speaking. India was not on my radar, or even my bucket list. But from the moment Fr Maria Joseph told us about the Santal children, my life would never be the same again.
In July of 2017, my husband Paul and I met Fr Maria Joseph Savariappan SJ, a Jesuit priest pursing a doctorate degree at the University of San Francisco. He filled in for our pastor, Fr Patrick Michaels, who was on vacation. That’s when Father told us about the Santal children.
Fr Maria Joseph first met the children nearly 20 years earlier at a small school in Gurap, West Bengal. Father was a novice then, and he went on to travel the world, earn several degrees and build a meaningful life of service. When he returned to Gurap, his heart was deeply moved for these children and their families. Their lives, the whole school program, looked exactly the same as it did 20 years earlier. All the children’s educational opportunities ended in fourth grade.
He wanted to help this people whose humble beginnings mirrored his own. He hoped to add a new grade each school year until grade 10 (high school equivalency) to this school which protected the children from outside caste prejudices and abuses. His compassion for the Santal children was infectious. As an educator, foster parent and serial community volunteer, I, too, am a champion of education as a stepping stone to greater social justice.
In December of 2017, OLMC offered the option of providing student scholarships to Santal children through an Advent giving tree. The response was incredible—all 103 children were sponsored by Christmas Eve! And the encouragement of our pastor and the community gave us the courage to ask, “Can we do more?”
Annette and then religious education director, Danny O’Regan visited Gurap in February 2018. During our visit, it became clear the scholarships were beneficial; but on their own, they would never meaningfully impact the injustice that had festered for generations.
Then, in November of 2019, Annette, Paul and another OLMC parishioner, made a third visit to India for the ground-breaking celebration of the first girls’ dormitory at the Gurap campus. We were greeted by the Santal community with joy—no longer outsiders, we were friends.
With two successful years of scholarship donations, the Venables Foundation long-term funding commitment and an engaged supporter base, we dove head first into 2020 with high hopes. The Santals, like all marginalized peoples, were more significantly impacted by the global pandemic—but honestly, at this point, all of us were reeling.
Back here in the US, we promised ourselves the children would not be forgotten during this incredibly difficult time. In September 2020, Tribe Rising India celebrated its annual fundraiser virtually and delivered nearly 200 celebrations in a box (lovingly curated by friends working in our driveway!) to homes in Marin County and San Francisco. Delicious Indian food, Indian-inspired florals and notecards featuring the children’s drawings of what they wanted to be when they grow up, reminded our donors that these were hopeful children who dreamed of better lives at a time when we all wondered about our futures.
When the Indian government allowed work, there was lots of building going on! During 2020, the girls’ dormitory was completed. In March of 2021, construction began on first high school uniquely dedicated to the education of the Santal students! During another pause in the Covid onslaught, over 150 people—all local Santal families—gathered to celebrate the ground breaking.
Only weeks away from fully re-opening schools for all ages, once again, Indian schools shut down as the Delta variant created an extreme public health crisis. The Jesuits had launched efforts to tutor in community centers and through videos sent to cell phones. But since most adults in the villages are illiterate and cannot afford cell phones, the children were mostly on their own. The Santal children were without formal education since March of 2020.
