Hyderabad: Students decide to make villagers up-to-date

Hyderabad: After visiting the Indrareddy Nagar inShankarpally mandal of Telangana and knowing the conditions of the village, the students of an international school decided to work for starting a 'computer training center' in the village to help youth for employment and an awareness campaign to spread information about the government schemes and programmes that were found lacking among the villagers in the study.

The students got this idea when the COVA Peace Network organised a 'Summer Activism Programme' for students of Birla Open Minds International School. When COVA Peace Network walked the students from their school to the village to look around and interact with the villagers, realisation dawned on them of the reality of village life and the deprivations faced by the people.

After learning about the condition of the villagers, the students decided to study the development interventions for addressing challenges of rural life and the impact of rising prices on different sections of society including a comparison of urban and rural populations.

The students decided to start Computer Training Center.

Mazher Hussain, Executive Director, COVA said, "Both the proposals of the students received instant support and their school offered to sponsor the campaign for awareness for government schemes and the Sarpanch came forward to make available space for the computer training centre. Now the students are planning to seek computers in donation and funds to run the centre from their fellow students when the schools reopen in the second week of June."

Aagam Mehta said, "Study was undertaken by him with fellow students on the challenges of village life clearly showed that there are serious problems with water supply, drainage, roads, employment, no government school beyond primary and no hospital or urban health post."

The study showed that while there was not much difference between rural and urban areas concerning the impact of rising prices, the poor and lower-middle classes showed similar levels of distress in terms of cutting down on food items and reductions in outings, entertainment and saving.

Further, the study also found that many were also forced to take loans or sell or pawn assets to meet daily needs. On the other hand, the middle class did not have to compromise much on basic food and grocery but were impacted by the reduction in salaries, savings and entertainment and an increase in rent and fuel prices.

The high-income group was least impacted with effects limited to a decrease in entertainment and vacations.

Aadhya Ganapathiraju, a student said, "We thought social service was just about giving old clothes and food to the poor but added that this internship helped change our perspective."