AIKYA in service of poor students

Visakhapatnam: A group of higher education students from various noted educational institutions started a novel service to help the poor students in Visakhapatnam.

Joining their hands with Akshaya Patra Foundation, which is serving mid-day meal to 25,000 children, established AIKYA (unity) and distributing notebooks free of cost.
The AIKYA members are collecting the unused papers and notebooks from the students of various colleges and making new books after recycling the collected material. The newly made books are being distributed to the students of various government school students in the district.

The students of GITAM University, Gayatri Vidya Parishat, Vignan Engineering college, Gayatri Engineering College Kommadi, Chaitanya Engineering College, Lendi College of Engineering, Viswanath Institute of Technology and Management, Gayatri Engineering Women’s College, Indian Maritime University, Gayatri Women's College, Nadimpalli Satyanarayana Raju Institute of Technology, Prism Degree College, Sri Kasyap Degree College, Samatha Degree College, Sri VS Krishna Degree College, Govt Polytechnic College established the AIKYA Forum.

As a part of its serving lunch, the Akshaya Patra Foundation found that the students of the government schools are facing tough times to buy notebooks in the open market. The parents of the students finding it difficult to provide notebooks to their wards as the prices are very high in the market. Observing the condition of the poor students, the Akshaya Patra Foundation gathered students of the colleges and asked them to look into the issue. The members of the AIKYA held a series of discussions on how to help the poor students of the government schools.

Several ideas have been floated during the discussions, including collection of donations and sponsorship programmes. But, the members are not satisfied on the ideas. Some of the members suggested for collection of unused notebooks and paper material to make new notebooks by recycling the material.

“With this idea, we started the ‘Project-R3’, in which we recycle used note books and paper material to make new note books. The used note books were collected not only from colleges of the members of the forum but also from different colleges in Visakhapatnam. Last year, they collected 18 tonnes of unused notebooks and papers from seven different colleges and made 10,000 notebooks and the same were distributed to 2,500 students of various government schools in the district.

After receiving good response, they decided to extend their service to help more students. Members of AIKYA Dhanush and Sai Teja of GITAM College, P Sarat Babu of Gayatri Vidya Parishat M Satya Prasad of Vignan Engineering, M Chaitanya of NSRIT, Divakar of Indian Maritime Institute, Y Sai Sagar of Chaitanya Engineering College said. One can call Dhanush on 9573408181 and Sai Teja over 8985972592 to donate their unused papers and notebooks to AIKYA.

BY VKL Gayatri