VIJAYAWADA: Following the pandemic outbreak, lives of most private school teachers have turned upside down. Moved by their plight, alumni of SRM University, Chennai, 2017 batch came forward to support them. To reach out to the private teachers and supporting staff, the SRM varsity alumni split into two teams in May 2020 with a vision titled 'Attitude of Gratitude'.
The initiative taken by the alumni is headed by one Neelesh Kumar Kuppala of Tirupati and his friends Vishnu Yanamandala, K Mukkavali, Pranav Bottu, Bhuma Poorna Lekha, L Mateti, J Ramineni, Yuvaraj Jonna, H Munigoti and JS Nellutla.
Kumar (25) told TNIE, “Having lost their jobs, most of the private teachers are struggling to bring food to the table. In search of a livelihood, they have become vegetable vendors and worked in the fields, while some became daily wage labourers, insurance and bank agents.”
He says, “We formed two teams—‘Abhimanyu The Hope’ and ‘Bhishma The Saviour’—to extend help to them. So far, we have supported over 360 private school staff (teaching & non-teaching). Most of them are organising events in Tirupati, Vijayawada, Nellore, Vizag, Chandragiri, and Hyderabad.”
“We supported the teachers financially by depositing money into their bank accounts through their linked mobile number. This is an act of gratitude—we are paying back to those who guided us to become what we are today. Inspired by our initiative, several alumni of Hyderabad replicated the same in Telangana benefiting over 100 teacher families,” he says.
When queried, Gnana Sri, a team member, replied, “We named the first team after Abhimanyu as he was the sole hope of Pandavas in Padmavyuham. We hope the Abhimanyu team will be a beacon of hope for the people. As our mission is to save lives, we named the second team after Bheeshma the Saviour of Hastinapur.”
Besides distributing groceries, the teams provided hand sanitisers, face masks, vaporisers, stationery to government school students and also helped in the medical treatment of people by spending from their pockets.
“SRM University Vice-Chancellor Vajjia Sambasiva Rao, SRM president Dr P Sathyanaryan Rao and founder TR Pachamuthu inspired us to take up the initiative, Gnana Sri says. “We want to inspire school and college-going students to know the meaning of gratitude.”
“Initially, the team members didn’t wish to reveal their identities, while doing charity work. For us it’s not about how much money you earn and can spare, it’s the thought that counts. We started off with how much can you pay back to the community,” she says.
“Neither the government nor the NGOs have helped us. ‘Abhimanyu’ and ‘Bhishma’ teams are the ones who helped us with groceries, medicines and money. They helped me and my family get some respite during the pandemic,” P Narasimhulu, a physical education teacher, said.