Good mail Phanindra :) I could feel the place in ur words. Makes me wanna visit this place in my next trip.
Prasanthi..have u been thinking of contributing to this place? -Divya --- In [email protected], phanindra <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Friends, > > I wanted to share my feelings on Ashray-Akruti but completely forgot about it. May be its a bit late now to share but they said - "Better late than never" and so I start! > > We visited both the school and the hostel of Ashray-Akruti. Mr.Babu (the head of Ashray-Akruti) led us and showed both these places. The school is small but is well maintained. It has several tiny class-rooms and caters to students upto 10th Class. The needs of the deaf students are well thought of as is evident from the big mirror that is placed on the wall at the location where there is a turn in the stairs. "Children will be in a rush to leave home in the evening and since they are deaf they can't sense if somebody is ascending the stairs by the sound. This poses a problem at the turning where there is a possibility that they may hit a person ascending the stairs. Placing a mirror helps to see whether somebody is ascending the stairs and hence avoids a possible collison" explained Mr.Babu. > > Mr.Babu next took us to the hostel in his van. The hostel has around 37 students including some 7-10 girls. What immediately impressed us is the orderliness and neatness of things. Be it the shoe stand or study tables or cots or bathrooms, everthing is neatly arranged. "Even we don't keep our homes with such neatness" commented Murali. "Well this is good! but how do you accomodate new students here, as this place looks already full?" asked one of us. "Simple! We don't take new students unless a old student leaves, thus creating a vacancy" came the reply from Mr. Babu. "This hostel has all the most needed facilities. We have 2 computers where children play games, there is a rest room if someone falls sick, we have a cook, we provide homely food and we have "aayaas" to take care of children" explained Mr.Babu while taking us through the hostel. > > The students in the hostel are very lively. When we reached there they were eating lunch sitting on the floor and on seeing us there is a glow in their face. They looked curious and one girl even put her thumb up and made a moving gesture to ask us who we are! Prasanthi looked very impressed and remarked "How sweet!" Remarkably, these students can understand what we say by seeing our lip movement. Mr.Babu called a boy, gave a bag and said "stove". The boy replied "stove" as if to ask Mr.Babu if thats what he meant. Mr.Babu nodded and said "Put it in the store room". The boy nodded and said "Store room" to confirm thats where he has to keep it. Mr.Babu nodded again and the boy left. "My goal is to make these students mix with the normal world. With proper training for 1-2 years, they can pick up what we say and can communicate back to us, although bit slowly" > > "What motivated you to start this school?" I asked Mr.Babu while we were returning back to the hostel. "My brother is deaf and he could not get proper training to assist him. Its then I decided to start a school like this." He gave us his visiting card while leaving and said "Its great to see you guys. Thanks for coming. Plz attend the independence day celebrations being organized by CSC exclusively for our school students". We said good-bye and left with memories of this visit. > > Overall, I have a good impression on this school. Seems that the school caters to both orphans and slum students but the hostel has only slum students (Mr.Babu mentioned that parents and relatives come to the hostel once in a while). Mr.Babu has big expansion plans and he told us he needs a lot of money for that. He even mentioned that he is shortlisted for funding by one US based voluntary service organization. Though he did not say it explicitly, it appeared to me that Ashray - Akruti would get a good amount of money if that organization finalizes his school. I am not sure what he is expecting of us, but I think we can contribute small amount to his school by donating some objects necessary for them. > > Phani. > > > Lakshmi Prasanthi Uppalapati <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hello Friends, > > As we discussed on various important topics, Suresh and Kalpana can't visit AA. Ratan ji, though interested, couldn't attend the meeting due to meetings in his apartment. > > Sowmya came to the school but as yesterday is sunday it is closed. As she gets only time on sundays to visit home, she didn't accompany us to the hostel. > > Myself, Murali, Jairam, Phanindra visited the hostel. I request three of them to write their opinions/feelings whatever about their visit to AA. > > Thank you. > > -- > with regards, > PRASANTHI. > ---- > When you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. > > > > > --------------------------------- > How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. >
