June 2025

Every penny donated goes to the Venkat Trust. All UK costs are met by the Trustees

Update from Sylvia Holder and Lindsay Swan

I have to admit defeat. Anno Domini is taking its toll. While I intend to be involved with my cherished Venkat Trust until my last breath - I’ve had 86½ years of exercising my lungs so far - the time has come for me to pass on some of my responsibilities. This newsletter is being written by both Lindsay and me but in future she and other trustees will take it on and she and I will work together on other projects, which we always enjoy.  

Lindsay has been involved with the Trust since the beginning so things will move on seamlessly although she will doubtless have her own ideas for the future. We can read each other like a book. We met 50 years ago at our place of work, a PR office in Johannesburg, ran our own PR company in London for 23 years and have been trustees of VMT for the past 21 years. To top it all, we’ve enjoyed a glorious friendship for half a century which is very evident in our co-authored memoir, Accidental Lives.

I’m very grateful to Lindsay for taking on an additional load as she already does much for the Trust. She has a lot of other commitments, not least a husband, two young grandchildren (plus their parents) and a voluntary job as a member of Wandsworth Prison’s Independent Monitoring Board. Our younger trustees will all chip in and John and Alex are earmarked to take over and steer the Trust ever forward in due course. They have visited Kovalam, and I’m confident that it will be in excellent hands and the future is secure.

Honorary fundraiser Alex has had a good airing in our newsletters and rightly so for her fund-raising successes. She came to live in Hove ten years ago, met partner John, one of our wonderful trustees, the first week and appeared to know everyone in town within a few weeks. She set up her Ubermummies fitness and friendship club, had twin boys two years ago but she still found time to organise runners for the Brighton Half Marathon in March. She has done this for several years with great success but this year the result was phenomenal. Somehow, she got 71 people to run for the Venkat Trust and between them they brought in a staggering £34,000!  The money is very gratefully being used towards the cost of yet another classroom block, going up now.

Team Venkat in Brighton Half Marathon

The acorn and oak story continues with yet more classrooms now being built to meet the needs of our nearly 1000 students, a fourfold increase since the high school first opened its gates to 240 students in 2013. They are occupying the last space surrounding our sports ground – since the original structure two small wings have been built to which have been added a total of 20 more classrooms, the science block, a library of academic books in a ship’s container, cricket nets and a bowling machine.    

Sylvia, JR and baby Thanuja survey the scene long before building began

From acorn.....to oak

Morning assembly

The senior school container library

The girls' kabaddi team limbers up

The Gwyneth Powell Memorial Garden on the HSS roof

Good news spreads fast and it seems the whole state of Tamil Nadu is aware of our stunning new science block of physics, chemistry and biology labs, brimming over with the latest equipment. We’ve become known for specialising in science subjects and have students eagerly preparing for their university courses in medicine, cyber security, computer science, medical lab technology, genetic engineering and, of course, AI.  

The splendid HSS Chemistry lab

Venkat Trust supporter Merv Huggett reports on an exciting initiative he’s introduced to Higher Secondary School pupils

One of the many highlights of my family’s visit to Kovalam in December 2023 was the installation of a TinyGS satellite ground station in the JR Community Hall. Tiny GS is a project of Space Kidz India, which encourages children, especially girls, to pursue careers in space science and technology.

But the story doesn’t end there.

Five girls from Kovalam’s Government Higher Secondary School have been selected to participate in Mission ShakthiSAT. This groundbreaking international initiative, spearheaded by Dr Srimathy Kesan, founder of Space Kidz India, is scheduled to launch next April with the mission to send a satellite to the moon and place it into lunar orbit.

Even more exciting is that two of these girls, Shri Harini and Haashinisri, are sponsored by the Venkat Trust.



Named after Shakti, the Indian goddess symbolising power, Mission ShakthiSAT seeks to empower 12,000 girls from underprivileged backgrounds in 108 countries by providing free STEM education (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics). Participants will receive 120 hours of online training in physics, mathematics, coding, PCB Design and amateur radio—entirely free of charge.

To support this global effort, ambassadors have been appointed in each participating country as liaisons between the ShakthiSAT team and the selected students.

India’s ambassador is Wing Commander Jaya Tare (retd), who shares Dr Srimathy’s vision of breaking gender barriers in STEM education.



Ultimately, one outstanding girl from each country will be chosen to travel to India and work alongside the ShakthiSAT team to help build the lunar satellite.

As well as being a significant step forward in encouraging young women to pursue STEM subjects, ShakthiSAT places our Higher Secondary School on the global map of space science.

Gopal, nicknamed Rocket Boy, has been sponsored for six years following a visit to Kovalam by his now sponsor. He’s about to start the third year of his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Artificial Intelligence, for which he was awarded a scholarship by a Venkat Trust benefactor. Gopal gained his nickname at the beginning of secondary school when he won a District science project for the splendid model rocket he built to mark the launch of a satellite.



Gopal’s father is a watchman, his mother is a gardener and he lives with his parents and siblings in the watchman’s cottage in his employer’s garden. He’s a shining example of a Venkat Trust sponsored child. Not only is he articulate and intelligent but he also spends time with our younger children sharing his love of science and has installed street lighting in the JR Hall’s model village through which the trains run.

Gopal with the illuminated model village

Asraf Ali

Asraf Ali is our newest sponsored child. He’s seven years old and, unusually, is being sponsored by a company rather than an individual. He is a pupil at the primary school and lives with his mother and older brother in one of the older types of cement sheet houses seen around the village, which belongs to his grandmother. These usually consist of two rooms and often have an open area for cooking. Generally, only one child per family is eligible for sponsorship. However, our trustees in Kovalam felt an exception should be made in this instance; Asraf Ali’s older brother is thriving under the wing of the Trust and they felt with a second child being sponsored, this little family would get the boost they need to escape the poverty trap.

Asraf Ali, like so many village children, loves playing cricket. His ambition is to be a civil engineer which before the Venkat Trust arrived on the scene would have been an impossible dream. Now, anything is possible.  

Another of JR’s good ideas was to open the audio-visual lab in the JR Hall to all Kovalam’s children and young people during the summer break. It’s been a great success with forty 11^th and 12^th standard students doing spoken English and computer training sessions during April and the younger children attending in May. Apart from the chance to brush up their skills, the children are glad to be learning in the air conditioned part of the JR Hall while temperatures outside soar.

There can’t be many charities blessed with more enthusiastic supporters than the Venkat Trust. Apart from our virtual Zoom Curry Lunch during Covid, we celebrated our sixth biennial Curry Lunch at Sussex Cricket Ground in March, where our guests of honour were JR and Ali. It was a reunion for 40 of the 75 guests as they have visited Kovalam at least once. Some people include a special detour via Chennai on their India holiday to spend a day or two in the village and JR is always delighted to welcome any Trust supporters who would like to see our work in action and visit sponsored children. It is a joyous experience and now that Venkat Villa and Venkat House are both up and running, there are spacious and comfortable places to stay, something which had been sorely lacking before now. Special rates are offered to all our supporters and for more information please contact venkathousekovalam@gmail.com   

Venkat Villa

Venkat House

We’ve been busily spreading the Venkat story through Accidental Lives, so much so that there’s even been a reprint. As well as a number of magazine interviews, Sylvia took to the airwaves on BBC Surrey and Sussex and braved the live Sky Breakfast programme with her VE Day memories. Lindsay made her book club debut at Ealing Book Festival in April and we’re also giving talks to all kinds of groups. Can you introduce us to any, or encourage your Book Group to put Accidental Lives on the reading list? We can offer a special Book Group price and the book’s also available on Amazon. Our royalties go to the Venkat Trust.

Accidental Lives is finding its way to some far-flung places and here’s the latest crop of readers’ pictures. We love receiving them so please keep them coming.

Ellie, found it a perfect companion on her blow-up boat in Bali

Chris, got up to speed on the story of nearby VMT while in Chennai for a wedding.

Emma, snatched a quick lunchtime break for a couple of chapters on a Cape Verde beach

Our youngest reader, Lindsay’s grandson Joe, couldn’t wait to get stuck in

We are very grateful to our volunteers: Emma Holder, our UK Sponsorship Coordinator, Sandra Huggett for her admin work, Alex Smallman, our Honorary Fundraiser and Astrid Hunton of Expat Academy for the layout and circulation of our Newsletter.

The Venkat Trust is a registered charity No.1104363

The Venkat Trust, 12 Westbourne Gardens, Hove BN3 5PP

Tel: 01273 719362

|e-mail: info@venkattrust.org.uk |website: www.venkattrust.org.uk

UK Trustees: Sylvia Holder, Lindsay Swan, Sarah Da Silva,

Nick Goslett, John Whelan, Natalie Lee, Frankie Knight, Helen Bathe

Kovalam Trustees: Janakiraman (JR), M. Ali