Education and discipline will alone take you places,” remarked actor Suriya reiterating his dad’s words. With his meaningful speech, veteran actor Sivakumar motivated the young girls and boys at the 39th annual event of the Sri Sivakumar Educational and Charitable Trust Awards to honour school toppers from Chennai.
Sharing the struggles of his childhood days, Sivakumar said, “The students who got felicitated here happened to speak about their parents’ occupation. But things were so terrible during my childhood times, where our village suffered from extreme drought, where we had to struggle for one meal a day. We had to walk miles without slippers. Deepavali and Pongal would come as usual, but we didn’t have any new dresses to wear. During my SSLC final, I had to pay '5 for group photo, which wasn’t even possible. But after many years, I donated '25 lakh to the same school. This means that when you have good things in mind and action, things will multiply on its own.”
Suriya said, “Education and discipline alone will take you in the right path. When we started Agaram Foundation nearly a decade back, we had no clue how it’s going to be in future. But today, it gives immense happiness to see that Agaram Foundation has benefited around 2,500 students. We are also planning to include the specialisation in sports and scientific studies in Agaram Foundation from this year.”
Suriya went on to say, “I never expected I would reach this level in life. When I look back as to where and how I started 20 years back in films and how I came to this stage, it is unbelievable. So it doesn’t matter where you are and who you are, nothing is impossible and it all depends on your willpower and determination.” He also made a request to city based students who have every opportunity to come up in life to reach out those who study in villages and help them in some ways.
Sivakumar said he was happy to serve for more than 31 years the Sri Sivakumar Trust and noted that the legacy of nurturing the needy is now being carried on with the same passion and vigour by his son and actor Suriya through his ‘Agaram Foundation’ from 2010.
Twenty students were awarded with prize money of '10,000 each. Apart from this, Rs 1 lakh was offered to Thai Tamizh School that offers education to underprivileged students. And Rs 1 lakh was given to ‘Vaazhai Iyakkam’, which strives for the growth the students belonging to first generation.
