Committed to its vision of improving the quality of education and infrastructure in government schools, Project 511, an initiative of the Hyderabad Round Table 8 (HRT8), announced its fifth edition of ‘Food for Change’, a black tie charity dinner to raise funds, here on October 15.
Launched in 2013, the ‘Food for Change’ brings together multiple partners and premier hotels of the city putting up a delectable and large spread of different cuisines – Indian, Italian and Telangana – for the charity dinner. The event, as part of ‘Joy of Giving’ (Daan Utsav), would be organised at JRC Conventions and the donor passes, priced at ₹5,000 each, could be obtained through Project 511 Facebook page.
Harish Cherukuri, chairman of HRT8, said funds so raised would be spent entirely for improving facilities in the government schools. The objective was to bring the government schools on par with the private schools by facilitating quality learning environment by liaising with all the stakeholders – the government, NGOs, corporates and local communities.
Started in 2003, the Project 511 focuses on infrastructure and competency and has provided blackboards and benches and built toilets in government schools. For improving children’s competency, learning material and mobile science labs have also been provided.
D. Suresh Babu, film producer and founder member of HRT8, said their work would impact two lakh children in 1,022 government schools in Hyderabad, Ranga Reddy, Sangareddy, Medchal and Medak districts.
“We complain that private schools charge exorbitant fee, but we are not equipping our government schools.” Welcoming other groups to join them, he said education was non-negotiable. If education was taken care of, a lot of problems could be solved, he said.
Srinivasan Namala, chairman, Project 511, said learning initiatives in English language and mathematics would be launched in 25 government schools as a pilot. Construction of a model school was also on the anvil with help of some donors, he said.
Support from celebrities
Celebrities had been lending their support to the charity event and the goodwill ambassadors of Project 511 include music composers Salim Merchant and Sulaiman Merchant, sportspersons V.V.S. Laxman and Pullela Gopichand, and actors Samantha Ruth Prabhu and Rakul Preet Singh. Leading corporates like Cyient, Porus Labs, Continent Coffee, Hotels Avasa, Hyatt Gachibowli, ITC Kakatiya, Marriott, Park Hyatt, Sheraton, Westin would be part of the event.
