Shortly before lunch yesterday, three men showed up at the steps of SNET's Fire Mountain Retreat. The elder of the three, Ragesh, the assistant mayor from the neighboring village of Naewapada/Kelthan, is someone whom we have met several times and we always enjoy his enthusiastic energy for helping his community. The purpose of their visit turned out to be to ask for financial assistance to help one of the young men of his village, Prafull Chandrakant Tumbada. Prafull had passed his exams and was now eligible to attend college and become a teacher. He is pictured above.
For his first year at teacher's college, a local politican has already sponsored him with 15,000 rupees for his tuition and now Prafull needs 5750 more ($125) rupees for class fees.
We believe it is an outstanding feat that this young man, Prafull, has accomplished the highest level, "Grade I with Distinction," in his coursework. He comes from an area where many children are discouraged from going to school so that they can work in the rice and brick fields to help earn money to buy food for the family. Thus they are not able to escape the vicious cycle of poverty.
The village, Naewapada, where he comes from is no ordinary village. Their mayor is a woman. Several of the villagers speak English. They have an active women's association which has bought two pieces of farm equipment that they rent out to help pay for the mini-tractor and to earn money for their association. The town came to SNET's Plant Give Away as a group and collectively took 300 plants to grow in a communal field. This is the same village that is asking for SNET to spearhead the building and implementation of a residential facility for the children whose parents cannot afford to keep them in school. And here, one of their own, has a chance to break out of poverty and bring back more education to their village. Notice how intense and purposeful this young man is. We believe he will be the fine teacher they need.
They need help. Please give them a hand.
Please donate by contacting www.tmaseva.org if you are in a western country or www.shreenityanandaeducationtrust.org if you are in India.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete