A Village School Transforms

Friday, August 18, 2017

Essential repairs to a village school in Uttar Pradesh have been brought to the children of Nagla Purviya, Mathura. This includes the building walls, windows, electrical system and the toilets.

The school is not very old, having been built in 2012 via government funding and contains two classrooms, an office and a kitchenette. It’s for 1st to 5th Standard and about 40-50 children attend. However, problems occurred and the building was not holding up well.

There were pits all over the floors, the walls were cracked, and the electricity did not work, so no fans for the children. Also, there were no shutters on the windows and the septic tank for the toilets had not been properly built below. Waste was not properly processed. Not even the school gate had been made. Things continued to digress. Bookshelves inside were broken and in one room, trash was on the floor.

The government was not able to offer any support for funding until 10 years after construction, as those are the rules. So the Mahajans, an elderly couple working with Amrita SeRVe in the village, decided to figure out how to solve the issues.

First they contacted the education officer for the district of Mathura, which contains about 2 000 schools. Sushila Mahajan asked him, “Would you put your children in this school? These are also somebody’s children.”

He took heed of the urgency of the situation and went to see the school. That too on a Sunday, his day off. He was appalled and immediately sent workers to start repair. He provided the funding for Rs. 30,000. That was enough to fix the cracks in the walls and the leaks in the building. This could also fund the installation of the window shutters.

However, needs remained. In order to pay for the repair of the school’s internal electrical wiring, the Mahajans got the villagers together. Everyone contributed Rs. 100 and that was enough to solve that problem. The fans finally worked, a great help to both children and teachers for studies.

Another big repair was that of the toilets. The Mahajans contacted the District Panchayat Officer of Matura to ask him for assistance. He provided the funds and the septic tank is now properly built.

All of this together has resulted in a beautiful transformation for the school. In fact, even the walls have been painted with lovely creatures bursting with bright colours—designs made by the students.  The school is now equipped with a mini library along with indoor games and puzzles.

Children now find much more happiness in attending class and getting their educations.