IN GRATITUDE ... contd
Winner of one of India’s highest literary honour,the Gyanpeeth Award,V.V.Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj is popularly known as Shakespeare of Maharashtra.He was the first person to describe Baba Amte as a Maha Manav (a great human being)and helped open up the minds of people to the work being done at Anandwan.
Service Civil International (SCI),a post-World War I peace group founded in 1920,believes in ‘Deeds Not Words’.The support of SCI proved to be a turning point in the history of Anandwan. In 1953,people from different walks of life belonging to 20 nations visited Anandwan as part of an SCI team.They built the first 3 pukka houses in Anandwan. Alfred Knaus, a German and a member of this team, became the first European to step on Anandwan soil.Since 1953, SCI has periodically held camps for voluntary labour at Anandwan. In 1990, SCI organised celebrations to mark 70 years of its existence in two places in the world, one of which was Anandwan.