“CRY America acknowledges with gratitude the Guru Krupa Foundation, whose generous gift of $20,000 ensures that the noble work of RWDS may continue.”

ThirumaMadasamy 13 years old hailing from Manikanagar village in Kadaladi block in Ramanathapuram village. His father is working in palmyrah related work and mother in Salt pan. Manickanagar village is located interior from the main access road and there are no bus facility for the village and hence children / community members will have to walk around 3 Kms from their village to main road for any transport facility. Children from this village will have to spend almost Rs. 40 every day in order to go to middle school which is 8 Kms away from this village and extends to Rs. 60 every day to travel 12 Kms for High and Higher secondary school. Most of the families in this village are engaged in either Fishing or Palmyrah related works and apparently the families face the hard stroke on their daily living / food.

In this situation ThirumaMadasamy dropped out of school this year after completing 8th standard last academic year due to long distance to school and lack of transport facility and stated working in a fishing work – Net knitting and cleaning. Due to which he goes to school late and the school teachers in BharathaMatha school admonish him with harsh words which he couldn’t bear. Post dropping out he had to take on the family responsibility as well and started working to carry out the duty as the first child in his family for his one younger brother who is studying 8th std. in BharathaMatha school and two younger sisters who are studying 4th std in primary school in the same village.

During the regular house visit by the community organizers and the community volunteer got to know about his situation that he has not enrolled for 9th std and working currently during when he also got used to alcohol. The team counselled and motivated his parents about the importance of education. Meanwhile, the team also met Thirumamadasamy in person and discussed with him repeatedly to motivate him to get back to school. With the persistent effort for three months, they could convince and too situation and his reenrollment. They also tried to constantly monitor him and guide/counsel to come out of drinking habit.

The team then spoke to education dept. about the teachers’ behavior and iterated to inform teachers to understand the situation of children and to be concerning. The HM and teachers were initially denying and refused to enroll him back in the school. The team along with Thirumamadasamy’s parents spoke to the teachers and committed to monitor on his son and ensure he is regular to school. Now his is enrolled in 9th std in the school and the community members are closely monitoring on him.