Apart from serving the country by developing crucial roads near the Indo-China border in Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand, two officers of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) have also been trying to serve the underprivileged by running a makeshift school for the children of labourers involved in road development project at an altitude of about 12,000 ft.
The two BRO officers- -Junior Engineer Rahul Yadav and Subedar Sandesh Pawar- started the initiative about 20 days ago while being deployed in BRO’s Shivalik road project near the Indo-China border. Both are attached to BRO’s 72 Road Construction Company (RCC) working in the area.
Speaking on the commendable initiative over the phone from Uttarkashi, Yadav said, “The sole aim of the initiative is to keep the children engaged after their parents go to work in the morning at 8 am.”
“While working for the project, I observed that after the labourers leave for the worksite, their children often used to run behind army vehicles or play on the roads amid running traffic. This was greatly endangering their safety and inviting an unfortunate incident. To stop this, initially, we asked one of the female labourers to look after them but she failed. It was then that we decided to start a makeshift school to keep them engaged,” Yadav said.
He said that he was soon joined by Subedar Pawar in the project.
“We then started three makeshift schools in areas near the international border namely at Jangla, Hondoligarh and Neelapani at an altitude of about 10,000-12,000 ft. The schools are running under tents and boulders are used as seats for the children,” said Yadav.
He informed that as the children were “cut off from the mainstream society”, they had to be taught from scratch.
“We are teaching them the alphabets of Hindi and English apart from helping them identify various animals, fruits and vegetables. We have also taught them the national anthem and important dates of national importance. Apart from the two of us, we have also involved a few labourers in the initiative who are a little literate to teach the children in our absence,” said Yadav.
His colleague Pawar said, “Since the initiative started, there are a total ofabout 75 children studying in these schools.”
“The classes start from 8 am and continue till 12 noon. Then there is a two hour recess period followed by resumption of classes from 2 pm- 4 pm. Now, all those children playing on roads are engaged in studies with full dedication. It feels nice that we are able to get them to do something productive,” said Pawar adding, “We have provided them basic stationery like notebooks and pencils.”
Their Commanding Officer, Major Binu VS too praised their effort and said, “What they are doing is really praiseworthy because it is providing education to these needy children. The BRO is trying to provide all the necessary items in these makeshift schools so that the children can learn effectively.”
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