Save a School with Ashwini Charitable Trust (ACT)

Here is a story of a girl called Ashwatha, a student of the Government Tamil Higher Primary School.

She is studying in the 4th standard and is the eldest of three daughters of the family. Her sisters Aishwarya and Anushree are in 3^rd and 2^nd standard respectively. Ashwatha is good at studies and she helps her sisters in their studies as well. She is from a very poor family where her father is the only bread winner of the family and her mother was not employed. Her father was an alcoholic and abused all the members at home. In spite of the problems at home, Ashwatha started coming to the school around three years ago. She later started bringing her very small sisters to the school just to avoid them being at home. Seeing her commitment to attend school, the teachers decided to employ her mother to work in the school. After a lot of intervention by the teachers, her father has changed his attitude and is proactively assisting their children in their academics

 Ashwini Charitable Trust (ACT) has adopted the Government Tamil Higher Primary School in Murphy Town, Bangalore three years ago.  After the adoption, we have been working hard to increase the student strength of the school and to raise funds to repair the infrastructure. This year we decided to renew the adoption agreement in July 2016.  

These children are first generation literates, so they do not have the right motivation to come to school. We have been providing all the basic necessities to the children of the school. We distribute a healthy porridge every morning and have given sweaters, sandals and kurtas to all the students. We try and motivate the students to come to the school regularly by engaging volunteers to spend time with the children at regular intervals

• Volunteers from an auditing firm had come to the school to spend a few hours interacting with students, teaching English and Math to elementary students and drawing and painting to other students
• Volunteers from a multinational mass media and information firm worked in the school area for almost 70 hours in October. The volunteers planted 10 saplingsacleaned the garden and play area and interacted with the students
• Volunteers from an architecture firm, spent a full day in the school, they painted the 1st standard class room, interacted with the students and distributed chocolates and juices

Since the school building is very old, built in 1924, it has been declared a heritage building and has many infrastructure issues such as leaking roofs, damp walls and broken floor tiles. Lack of funds is constraining us from doing more. We appeal for more funds through Global Giving, so that the poverty stricken parents and their underprivileged children are attracted by the facilities and amenities and hence come back to school.