Last Sunday CTC scouted 5 poor villages nearby Pulicat which had been impacted by the recent floods distributing initial relief to affected families. We plan to adopt these hamlets and help in rehabilitation - building a school for 160 children, restoring damaged livelihood (fishing nets), access to clean water and later on rebuilding of homes.
Many of the families belong to scheduled castes which are suppressed by other neighboring villages. Many of them were relocated from Srihari Kota years ago. They live in huts and were badly affected by the recent floods. Relief materials from NGOs / Government did not reach them being blocked by nearby upper castes. We distributed tarpaulin sheets to protect damaged roofs from rains and relief kits and rice to those who did not receive relief till now.
In our scouting process we were guided by Ashok, an amazing human being who quit his job at IBM and decided to dedicate his life to the education of these children from poor villages nearby Pulicat. CTC will assist in building a school to cater to 160 children from 5 nearby backward flood impacted villages which have no easy access to proper education. Ashok guided us to 5 nearby poor villages which lost their livelihood in the recent floods.
One of the hamlets we visited cannot be accessed by road. One has to follow a narrow trail along a small electrical wire which provides light to a small settlement with 8 huts. No direct access to drinking water. Grandfather (second from right) 60 years old and daily wager takes care of his 4 grand children - mom committed suicide and dad left with another woman. Another 2 kids from a nearby house are also orphans - dad is in prison after a fight, mom left her kids behind for another man and did not even bother to contact their kids after the recent floods. Many children are not attending school. Their future is unknown....
We will be working out a detailed rehabilitation plan for the 5 poor hamlets in the coming weeks. Anyone interested to get involved / support this effort, do get in touch with me.
More photos taken during our visit over here. Photo credit Ganesh Kumar
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