Kurnool Flood Affected Schools Rehabilitation Program

 
As a result of the recent floods in the district of Kurnool, many villages were affected along with the government schools. One such badly effected village was Panchalinga in the district of Kurnool. Panchalingala has 5 government which were completed inundated as the flood water swept 12 feet above the school buildings . All the classrooms were filled with water which remained stagnant for two days, all the school supplies were of no use, all the books, the computers and the infrastructure were very badly damaged. \There was no other place for the school children to have their classes so the school staff had to conduct the classes under the trees or in the corridors of the school building. To bring out the school children from such situation, Operation Blessing India took an initiative to rehabilitate all the five government schools here in Panchalingala.

In couple of weeks time all the five schools were cleaned of mud and debris ,white washed and painted. In addition to this all the 772 students in the five schools were given school bags, books, water bottles and other stationary, some educational charts were also provided to each of schools. Before the children could go back to their newly refurbished schools, OBI arranged a special program with Shri.D.Manikya Vara Prasada Rao, Honorable Minister for Secondary & Intemediate Education, Govt. of Andhra Pradesh as the chief guest on the 3^rd of December 2009 in the premises of the Z.P. High School in Panchalingala. The attendees for this program were the Joint Collector (district administrative officer)– Ms.Smitha Sabarwal, DEO(district education officer) – Mr.M.Ramalingam, Dy. DEO – Mr.Geetha Das, the Z.P. Chairman, the Surpanch,  Dr.Rajesh Dasari, Director OBI and Mr.Vivian Isaac, Manager OBI and of course all the five school children and the staff.

The program was started with the lighting of the lamp followed by a patriotic song presented by the school children after which the various programs of OBI were shared to the audience by Dr.Rajesh followed by the speech of Ms.Sabarwal . The minister Mr.Vara Prasada Rao shared about how important was the need of such rehabilitation program in the flood affected villages and appreciated the efforts of OBI in rehabilitating all the schools and helping the children of Panchalingala to have a better studying environment. He said the Government would be  releasing additional funds to rehabilitate and renovate all the schools effected by the floods in the  district. He appreciated OBI for its excellence in services provided. Later Mr.Vara Prasada Rao distributed the school supplies to the children along with Dr.Rajesh and other dignitaries, followed by the distribution of Wheelchairs to 15 physically disabled; one the beneficiary, Kameshwari said “ I am so grateful to OBI for the wonderful gift given to me”.

 
The staff and the children of the Z.P. High school thanked OBI for not only rehabilitating their school along with the other schools but also for selecting their school premises for this prestigious program, the head mistress Mrs.Vanaja said, “This is the first program of such a kind in this village and we all are very thankful to OBI for its dedicated services and you have set an example in doing so.”

The Saakshi newspaper (highest circulated daily in the state with 1.3 million readership per day)stated, “The schools got back their past glory….. thru OBI”