Alumni reunions are usually just gaiety and revelry. But not all are so.
Last year, when old students of the Malabar chapter of the Sainik School at Kazhakuttam in Thiruvananthapuram gathered for their annual celebrations, they used the opportunity to pay something back to society.
They chanced upon a news report on the plight of Rema, a budding poet living with her tuberculosis-inflicted father in a makeshift shack in a water-logged region, at Pallikkara, Payyoli here.
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With most of the alumni doing well in life, they decided to fund a housing project for the girl and her aged father.
On Saturday, Rema and her father moved into their dream home, bidding goodbye to the shack. They received the keys of the house called ‘Aadima’ to mean ‘the beginning” from Hari Ashwin, 12, from Beypore, who joined the Sainik School this academic year.
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Rema, who is physically challenged due to medical negligence from childhood, had passed Class X and had also won prizes in poetry. Like any other young girl, she too dreamt of higher studies, a job, and a happy life. But her poor father could not send her to college, Ramesh Babu, Project Director, Nirdesh, said.
The girl was left with nothing after her father partitioned his 7 cents of land among his five children. Without a place to live, Rema was forced to sleep on verandas, under hospital beds, in bus stand, and in front of shops.
Over a period of time, she was able to purchase a 3-cent plot in a waterlogged area.
Meantime, she applied for government funds under Indira Awaas Yojana to build a house on the plot. The first instalment of Rs.60,000 she received was used up to fill up the waterlogged plot.
She would get another Rs. 40,000. But that would not even fetch a room.
“Thus an appeal was made to all old students of Sainik School. They promptly chipped in money and technical advice to build the house.
With the money collected, it was planned to build a 680 sq ft house, estimated at Rs.7 lakh,” Capt. Babu said.
M.C. Mohandas, a civil engineer, constructed the house without any profit.
Likewise K.T. Rajan a local mason undertook the job without much remuneration and Subedar T.T. Shaji, an Army man volunteered to supervise the construction, he said.