Bengaluru: The Government Higher Primary School in Nallurhalil, Whitefield, was inaugurated with much ado five years ago. Not a single class was ever held there, however. The building, which had eight classrooms, lay in disuse and became a sort of dumpyard and storage unit for local builders. Things might have continued unnoticed in this vein, but for a chance intervention by members of the group Nallurhalli Rising.
Three weeks ago, Shrinivas Reddy and Murguraj Swaminathan, both techies, decided to clean up the old park in Nallurhalli, which stood adjacent to the unused school. There, they spotted a large number of children milling about.
"They told us that they don’t go to school," said Reddy, who has lived in Nallurhalli all his life and eventually spearheaded the project to restore the school. The Nallurhalli Higher Primary School was where the older children in the area went, but with increasing traffic on the roads, the younger ones found it impossible to walk the two-km from their homes by themselves. "Because of this, the older children were asked to stay home and take care of their siblings," he added. "The irony," said Swaminathan, the project champion, "Is that there were so many kids who couldn't go to school when an actual building lay unused in their neighbourhood."
Once permissions were acquired from the local BEO, the village elders and leaders helped evacuate the contractors who had left their materials on the premises.
TESCO, one of their biggest sponsors, brought in 200 volunteers to clean the school premises, paint the building and put up boards, at a cost of Rs 1.8 lakh. Rotary Bangalore IT Corridor is funding six toilets and five washrooms and construction is under way. RxDx Hospital will sponsor the play items, while Samruddhi Trust, represented by Mom Bannerjee, has provided teachers, materials and is even bringing children from other slums to the school. The Sai Trust provides breakfast. "The principal of the Nallurhalli Higher Primary School helped us a lot as well," said Swaminathan. "He is the one coordinating the Akshaya Patra midday meal scheme.
It took three weeks of intensive work. All the core members have regular day jobs, but returned to the site whenever they could. "I would visit the premises in the morning to check on the progress and see what needs to be done," said Swaminathan. "All of us devoted our weekends to the project as well."
The Nallurhalli bridge school, which will be inaugurated formally today, already has 72 children and six teachers. "We are expecting about 125 kids in total," said Swaminathan. The children are between the ages of five and seven and come from the nearby slums." When we opened the school for the first time, we brought all 72 children there before the doors were thrown open," smiled Swaminathan.
The Nallurhalli Rising team is in the process of raising funds for electrical wiring, fencing around the campus premises, grills and a dining area shed. "Right now, we're still serving them lunch in the classroom because we have nowhere else to take them," said Swaminathan.
Very little could have been done without the cooperation of Shrinivas Reddy, who has lived there all his life. "Villagers and the educated classes tend to look upon each other as strangers," he said. "I'm a techie living in the village and what I really want to do is bridget that gap."
