On last sunday(21/03/10) I went to went to Vijayawada along with BOSF
members. Below i am sharing our trip details.
It was a single day trip. We enjoyed the trip a lot. It was very
educative. People attended for this event are from "Amma", "Helping hands" and
"TMAD". It was very nice trip, educative and fun filled too. Amma group
Srinivas was the coordinator for this trip and he did a
great job.
At first we visited Y's men club run by Virabhadra Sastri garu. He is
an old man but very young at work. He writes poetry and he has a lot of
experience in social service.They are providing training in computers(MS
Office, DTP) and tailoring for women with white card. Many women who got
training
here got employment. Sasthri garu even requests some banks to give loans to
the poor people to buy tailoring machines. "Amma" group gave some money and i
observe even a few people gave money individually. Sastri garu is very much
inspiration for us and for future generations as well.
Next we went to C.B.R academy of sports and education. It was started by
Chalasani Bala Ramaiah garu ex-army officer who came from very poor family. We
met him. He spent with us from afternoon to evening by sharing his knowledge
about sports, history(of India and world), religion, health.
His childhood dream was to win one gold medal in Olympics for India. He
failed to achieve it due to poverty. He was a weight lifter. He did poultry
business and it was very successful and it was international. As he was curious
in sports he left the business and started helping the sports persons by giving
money to them. But he didn't observe any result out of it. He observed that
those people who got help from him are not much interested in sports and they
play only to get jobs in railways and other govt. fields. Even he provided
sponsorship for some people who won medals in Asian games. But the persons who
got help
didn't do anything for their juniors or to the people from whom they got help.
So he felt that not just sponsorship first people should be given value based
education right from childhood.
So he started school from 8th class to 10th class. He was not satisfied
with the results so decided to start from 5th class. Here the education and
boarding is free of cost. If the children pass the physical test and they have
interest in sports they will be trained in sports. Mainly they provide training
in Weight lifting and Athletics. Some people who got training in that academy
got medals in Asian, Commonwealth international events. Now they are aiming for
Olympics. 60% of the food items are available within their campus only. The
students them selves do farming and a lot fruit trees are also available within
their campus. In the next coming 2 years their aim is to produce 100% food
items within the campus including
rice.So this campus is like a "Gurukulam" about which we study in history.
Balaramaiah garu showed us all the campus and he explained us the
importance and history of each and every quotation that is written on the
walls. He told us a lot about history of India and world as well with map. He
warned us that, keeping the development aside India is in very dangerous
position since the politicians here are so corrupted the foreigners are in a
position to rule our government. He says that very soon India will be broken
into different pieces( or countries) like USSR. He said, "It was not my
opinion, more ever its an open secret".
Balaramaiah garu is very dynamic person though he was old. He believes
that only the reason India became a poor country was because its education
system was spoiled. His aim is to establish "Gurukulams" in all districts of
our state. He said, "Many of my friends
are ready to give 10 acres land 10lack rupees money". But very unfortunately
not even a single person is ready to take that responsibility.
Balaramaiah garu shared us about one success story of RTI act. There
were some mountains in front the academy. There were a lot of quarries work
over there. They used to blast the mountains, then some stones were falling in
to the campus causing injuries to the students. They complain to the police but
they didn't take any action as they are taking bribe. So they approached RTI
act. and keep on filing cases through RTI. When ever they filed a case by RTI
the quarry owner has to pay some bribe to the govt. Finally the quarry owner
came and said, " I can't pay any more bribe" and shifted his business to other
side of the mountain.
Finally Balaramaiah garu said, "We take any poor students from 5th class
to 10th class and
provide free education, and sports training and we are planning to start a
teacher training and nurse training schools as well in the near future."
Thanks
Sivaji.
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