Sending Two Girls to School

This week, we managed to send two of the girls at Ramavaram to school. The following is written by Apoorvaa, who, along with Malar, managed to do this:

To start with I was excited to go to the school and talk to the people there. I felt like I was in charge to put Amudha and Meena in school. I know how hard it is to sit at home without studying. After my 12th class I could not go into medical college so I had to sit at home and all my friends were in college going to college and studying. I was ashamed for sitting at home even though it was not my fault, but I know the consequences. I prepared myself to go and talk and to convince the people in school to admit Amudha and Meena. I saw Amudha from my place so I very badly wanted to put her in school and I didn’t want Meena also to face the same consequences.

I also realized that my responsibility has increased and it made me feel as if I had grown up. My dad sponsors two kids every year, but he started it at the age of 50. I am starting from the age of 20.

Sriram Anna and I went to the school first with Amudha, Meena and their dad to the school (St. Thomas Higher Secondary School) and then Nivedita Akka, Malar and Venkat joined us we spoke to the teacher and then we spoke to the assistant headmaster and she said she would give seats for these two girls. They were ready to give the girls E Group but they wanted to do C Group. Considering their future, their teacher said that E group would help them more. They were somewhat uncooperative because according to me, to succeed in life a person has to love the work they do. So I didn’t want to spoil the girls’ life by putting them in a group which they didn’t like. But as Akka and Malar suggested, studying E Group would provide a better future.

We met the headmaster in the evening and he said we can pay Meena’s fees as we had her original marks sheet. Because Amudha didn’t have hers, we could not pay her fees then. He gave us a deadline till Friday evening to bring her paperwork.

The headmaster was a sweet person and he was very co-operative and wanted to help us in all the ways he could. He is a good person who really cares about getting the kids educated. He told us that it is enough if we pay Rs 25 for one child as a school fees and just pay for their notebooks in the future. Not many people in this world would say like that. Being a students organization especially from a medical college, they could have asked us more money or could have asked something else. However, he was very genuine and he understood us.

After paying the fees in the school for Meena,. I came back to hostel and told all my friends and my parents. We went to the temple made archana for Meena and Amudha.