Good Samaritans teach rural kids in Gujarat

Vignesh Trivedi (50), with a business of his own and a 71-year old mother to tend to, travelled 35 kms every week to teach class X students in Paladi Kankrej village.

Hiren Mehta is a teacher in a school, runs coaching classes, and is father to six-month old girl. All his responsibilities did not deter him from guiding SSC students from this village to success.

Employed with the hospitality sector, Archana Jani goes to Paladi Kankrej thrice a week, after her office hours, to teach SSC students.

Trivedi, Mehta and Jani are a league apart from most of their peers. While many simply complain about the need for change, these three went ahead and ushered it in.

Busy professionals all, they consciously took time out of their schedules, to teach underprivileged children in a school in Paladi Kankrej village, located about 16 kms from the city. The result: the school’s pass percentage, in just one year, has gone up from 15% to 64%.

Avbodh IQG Rural Empowerment Programme (AIREP) is an initiative funded by working professionals like the above three, and works at linking human and other resources with society’s neediest. AIREP had appealed to the citizens, using various media, for help in educating children living in villages around the city. 

In response to their appeal, some good Samaritans from the city opted to dedicate 6-12 hours every week, to teaching the class X children at Paladi Kankrej. Their efforts bore fruit, when on Thursday, SSC board exam results revealed that 64% of the school’s SSC students had passed, a whopping four times more than usual.

The bard had rightly said, “Kaun kahta hai aakash mein surakh nahin ho sakta, ek patthar to tabiyat se uchalo yaron” (Who says that seemingly impossible things cannot be accomplished, let us make an earnest effort).