With most schools reopening in a week, it’s that time of the year when kids go on a shopping spree to buy school bags, books, pens, lunch boxes and the likes. A few others avail the luxury to sit back at home enjoying the last few days of the summer holidays as many private schools sell these essentials at stationery-stores within the school premises. However, for some, covering these basics becomes a daunting task.
Be it urban, semi urban or rural areas, a government school with a teacher is not enough to guarantee education to a child. Lack of money for essentials such as books and pens, which might seem trivial to many, adds to the agonisingly high dropout rate in India.
Volunteers of Youth for Seva (YFS), a non governmental organisation based in Delhi with chapters in other cities including Hyderabad, realised that in such situations external support becomes inevitable for kids to continue education. Thus the School Kit Drive was started in 2009 by YFS Bengaluru and initiated by the Hyderabad chapter in 2010. The target was to help financially constrained kids by gifting them a school kit.
“This year we collected 10,000 school kits,” said partnership coordinator of YFS Hyderabad, Sesha Aditya Kanduri. Each school kit costs `300. “Most of our funding comes from corporate social responsibility tie-ups. This year some of the major sponsors were ValueLabs, Wells Fargo and Agility,” he said.
Each kit comprises a school bag, five notebooks, two pens, a geometry box, 20 labels and few educational charts. The kits were packed this Sunday with the help of over 250 volunteers, friends and family. The distribution process will be completed by this month end. The criteria for receiving the kit includes a single-parent child, meritorious student lacking resources at home, or kids from economically weak background.
“Nearly 70 per cent of the kits are distributed in Utnoor, Marrigudem, Ramayampet, tribal hamlets near Bhadrachalam, Araku, and a few more villages. The remaining will be given to the kids of government schools in Hyderabad where our regular volunteering work takes place,” said Aditya.
This is not the only initiative by YFS. Their ‘Sponsor a Child’ connects economically backward kids to donors. Nearly 1000 kids have benefited from over 500 donors in two years.
Earlier this year, YFS Hyderabad and ITC organised a camp to collect old books from students and gift them an equivalent quantity of stationery. Nearly 700 students from seven government schools across the city participated and over 2000 kgs of old books were collected. The aim was to inspire them to reuse and recycle.
“We have plans to start ‘Teach English’ program later this month,” said Aditya. This would be another of their many volunteer oriented programs. With a volunteer base of over 700, YFS takes pride in providing a platform to those who want to lend a helping hand towards the betterment of the community.
