ALAPPUZHA: The Kudumbashree units of Muhamma panchayat’s ward 12 kept their promise and flew 10 students with straight ‘A pluses’ in the SSLC examination to Bengaluru on Thursday. The assurance was given in February. The units collected money by selling scrap material, including old newspapers, collected from houses of Kudumbashree members.
Their IndiGo flight took off from Nedumbassery at 7am and reached the capital of Karnataka around 8am. The students visited Lalbagh Botanical Garden and Vidhana Soudha. They also took a ride on Bengaluru Metro. The group started the return journey by Bengaluru-Kochuveli Express train in the evening.
“We had a wonderful time,” said Abhirami S, a student of AB Vilasom HSS, Muhamma. “This was the first time in a plane for all of us. This will motivate us to excel in our higher studies as well,” she said. “Initially, the plan was to fly the group to Thiruvananthapuram. Ten Kudumbashree members also joined the trip. On making enquiries, we realised that the fare to Thiruvananthapuram was `2,500, while that to Bengaluru was `1,900. We decided to alter the destination. The entire group had an enjoyable experience,” said panchayat member Latheesh B Chandran.
The ward has as many as 21 Kudumbashree units, with around 300 members. “The trip was funded mostly with old newspapers. The majority of members subscribe to newspapers and each contributed around 2kg every month. This brought in around Rs 15,000 a month.
The earnings of three months were utilised for the project. In addition, scrap materials from houses were also collected and sold to dealers for additional income,” Latheesh said.
The participants were students of schools in and around the panchayat. Kudumbashree had also held a motivation class before the examination.