The Hindu : Happy school impresses Krishna

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 29, 2004

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Happy school impresses Krishna

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE, JAN. 28. These poor children from slums and orphanages quizzed the Chief Minister, S.M. Krishna, on Wednesday.

Mr. Krishna, who inaugurated the second school of Parikrama Humanity Foundation at Sahakaranagar off Bellary Road, said the children asked him how he became the Chief Minister and what he did when he was stressed out.

After going around the classrooms in the three-storey building where 161 children will study from kindergarten to Class V, the Chief Minister said: "This is a happy school and the smiling faces of the children show a ray of hope which has come into their lives. The 98 per cent attendance recorded by the school is heartening."

The Akshara Dasoha scheme of providing mid-day meals in schools had brought down the dropout rate to around 11 per cent but there was still a long way to go before the State reached the 87 per cent literacy rate, Mr. Krishna said. "This is why we have focused on primary education... the intelligent questions asked by the children here shows that any child can shine given the right opportunity," he said. Overcome by the affection showed by the children, he said: "There is great hope in their smiles, such smiles keep men like me going."

Parikarama already runs another such school in Koramangala. The new school will have 161 children, 75 of them girls; 60 children are from orphanages. The children, who were expectantly waiting for Mr. Krishna in the school quadrangle, invited the "Chief Minister Anna" to a pleasant task — filling in a circle to form a dot on the Parikrama logo. The children sang in chorus to greet him with the school song whose words reflected the motto "love, explore, excel".

Saraswati Chakravorty from the Parikrama Foundation, who welcomed the Chief Minister, said: "Given love and caring, a transformation automatically takes place in their lives; now they are able to compete on equal terms." The Foundation, which was assisted by several corporates, had reached beyond the children in schools. Their fathers had been helped to come out of addiction and eight of them had given up alcohol, Ms. Chakravorty said. The mothers were now empowered and older siblings were being given vocational training. "The families were earning barely Rs. 700 a month and now the older children themselves get much more," she said.

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