NOBLE GESTURE: HSBC's Senior Manager (operations) Iain D. Coleman with visually impaired Gayatri, after seating her on a fibreglass tortoise at the Government Residential School for Visually Challenged Girls on Vizag-Bhimili Beach Road on Friday. P hoto: K.R. Deepak

VISAKHAPATNAM: It must have been a welcome and lively break from the monotony on the fine Friday forenoon to Iain D. Coleman, senior manager (operations) of HSBC Electronic Data Processing India Private Limited, here. The occasion was the formal inauguration of the garden shelters and other play facilities like fibreglass animals, donated by HSBC Group Service Centre (GSC) employees to the Government Residential School for Visually Challenged Girls, located amid the sylvan surroundings on the Vizag-Bhimili beach road.

Freely mingling with the little inmates of the school, Mr. Coleman could not conceal his joy and declared: "I am thrilled that the HSBC staff's mite has brought some cheer to these less privileged children.''

Help for future

He said that the HSBC employees had been closely interacting with the schoolchildren and reaching out to them for over a year now and vowed to continue the association in future too. The facilities provided by HSBC staff, according to him, is a reflection of their concern for the visually impaired girls and making them discover the wonders of the animal world. The community committee of HSBC GSC fabricated these fibreglass animals and installed them in the garden of the school.

The employees raised the funds over a four-month period through what they call `dress down days,' a charity cricket match and sale of friendship bands. The garden shelters have been given an aesthetic touch by providing canopies, so that the children can relax during lunch recess. Mr. Coleman, who was billed to declare open the facilities, chose to give the honour to S. Gayatri, who cut the ribbon. At the instance of school principal V. Venkataratnam, A. Santhi delivered the address of welcome in chaste Telugu thanking the HSBC staff .The staff has so far donated Rs.6 lakhs to provide these facilities plus a polocarbonite roof over the hitherto open-air assembly hall.

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