Chennai: The people Abdul Kalam connected with and inspired the most were the youth and children studying in schools and colleges across the state. Today, they came out in thousands to pay tributes to the people’s President.
A group of students from Loyola college of engineering paid tributes to the missile man at Madras Institute of Technology and resolved to start projects to educate slum students who were unable to access education.
C. Hamsica, a computer science student in Loyola college of engineering, recalled that when she and her friends in hostel heard the news of Abdul Kalam’s sudden demise on Monday night, they prayed that it was a rumour. After the information was confirmed, they skipped their dinner.
Hamsica, Bhabani Shankar, P. Lakshmanaryanan, B. Hamsini and Raja Antony from Loyal College of engineering have now resolved to reach out to slum children by taking up an initiative of making education accessible to them.
Bhabani Shankar, who is an IT student and a member of eco club in their college, is the pioneer of this thought. “In remembrance of him we want to take up this cause,” she said.
After paying homage to him in the institution they headed to a slum area at Chetpet. Every week they will conduct a session for the downtrodden children. They have also asked the college authorities to raise funds for the slum project.
Further P. Lakshmanaryanan is in the process of making an app, which will be similar to that of WhatsApp. Teachers all over Chennai schools will have to download the app, so to inform them about the slum areas. Thereby every week on Saturdays and Sundays they can go and teach the students.
“It was my English teacher Punita who inspired me about Abdul Kalam. From then on, I started reading his books. This slum project is an initiative on our part to pay homage to him,” he said.
