Formation of the Gundert Kaundinya Moegling Foundation

Formation of the Gundert Kaundinya Moegling Foundation

An intention of the Hermann Gundert Society

"The aim of the foundation is the promotion of intercultural exchange and training. The target group are in particular young, talented - principally needy - persons who are to be given a new perspective and insight into other cultures."

For the majority of people the world is becoming smaller, information is becoming more extensive and more quickly accessible and communication is becoming more open and more uncomplicated. In underdeveloped areas, however, talented young people depend on education and exchange. For this they need the opportunity to broaden their horizons by a stay in another country. Back home they can then contribute to the development of their home country with new ideas and links and act as contacts to their host country.

"The Gundert Kaundinya Moegling Foundation aims to build bridges between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds and with different ways of thinking and living. It aims to give in particular talented pupils, apprentices and students a new perspective and to provide opportunities for them to gather experience of different cultures, to enable situations to be approached critically and creatively, thus facilitating exchange and the furthering of new initiative."

Support by the Foundation
The support will consist of a material and an immaterial component. The material support is intended to help the recipient to travel to the host country and to help finance the stay there. The immaterial support is to convey the culture of the host country. To achieve this the young people supported will receive the opportunity to take part in cultural events, excursions and discussions and to visit host families.

"Extensive exchange is intended to arouse curiosity for what is different, to overcome prejudice through knowledge and to promote a view over and beyond individual religion and nationality in a world that is becoming ever more complex"

In specific, particularly underdeveloped regions individual projects in the field of training and medicine will be promoted.

Industry
Industry is to profit from the work experience in the host country gained by the students supported. After their return companies can refer to them as people acquainted with the culture and society of the country they visited.

Mutual Benefit
"The young people supported should afterwards be willing to be mentors for at least one future recipient of support each."
The Gundert Kaundinya Moegling Foundation is meant to have long-term effect. Recipients of assistance are expected to contribute in conformance with the aims of the foundation towards the promotion of further young talents: on the one hand as mentors and on the other as former grant recipients. Contact to the host country and to the foundation is to be maintained through the mentors. "The young grant recipients are expected to see themselves as citizens of one world and to live in responsibility for the present and the future generations."

The Foundation is name after:
Hermann Gundert (born in Stuttgart in 1814, died in Calw in 1893).
He studied in Tuebingen, did his doctorate in philosophy and qualified as a theologian. From 1836 till 1859 he worked as a teacher, missionary and linguist in southern India - first in the Tamil-speaking, later in the Malayalam-speaking areas. He sought contact to people of all castes and religions; he learned from them and they learned from him. As the state school inspector of Malabar and Kanara (1857-1859) he visited schools, planned curricula and wrote school books. He completed his "Malayalam and English Dictionary" in Calw, where he purveyed his extensive knowledge of India in journals and books in his position as the head of the Calw Publishing Union. In Kerala he is still today esteemed as the "father of New Malayalam".

Herrmann Anandrao Kaundinya (born in Mangalore in 1825, died in Ketti, Nilgris in 1893).
As a Brahmin he attended the English school in Mangalore and was christened in 1844. From 1846 to 1851 he received training in the Mission in Basel and often visited Aldingen, near Tuttlingen. In 1851 he returned as a teacher and missionary to Mangalore, where his wife Lakshmi died in 1853. In the district of Kodagu (Coorg) he spent his whole fortune on buying land to build the village Anandapur, thus laying the foundation for Christian settlers. In 1860 he married Maria, nee Reinhardt from Waldenbuch. From 1869 he lived with his family in Anandapur, where his wife made an active contribution to parochial work. They were an example of an intercultural way of life and gave many people a new perspective.

Herrmann Friedrich Moegling (born in Gueglingen in 1811, died in Esslingen in 1881).
After studing theology in Tuebingen he spent a short time in the Mission in Basel and in 1836 travelled via England to southern India where he realised his visions: he founded English schools and in 1847 the teachers' and catechists' seminary in Mangalore; together with Gottfried Weigle (1816-1855) he published old Canarese literature in the volumes of the Bibliotheca Carnatica. In Kodagu he and his wife Pauline, nee Bacmeister, Weigle's widow, laid the spiritual foundations for the Evangelical parish and the village of Anandapur. In 1861 he returned to Germany, became the pastor in Untergruppenbach and spent his retirement in Esslingen.

Gundert, Kaundinya and Moegling built bridges between India and Europe: Gundert as a language and culture scholar; Kaundinya as an ethnologist and minister giving people new perspectives; Moegling as a linguist and innovative strategian.

Donations are welcome. The organisation is officially recognised as an authorised charity. The carbon copy of the bank transfer is accepted by the German tax office as a proof of donation. For donations over 200 Euros a receipt is automatically issued by the organisation. Donations for the Gundert Kaundinya Moegling Foundation to be sent to:
BW-Bank, Sorting code: 600 501 01, Account: 2598981
IBAN: DE 86600501010002598981
Swiftcode: SOLADEST