Kovai youth lights up lives of tribal kids in bleak Erode village

COIMBATORE: It is a remote village in Erode district where no child held a book in their hands. They walked on ropes, pole-vaulted and did somersaults on streets. But a 23-year-old youth from Coimbatore, Chakravarthy Karthikeyan, has now lit the flame of education in their bleak lives.

Now, the 600 tribals in MGR Nagar in P. Karattupalayam village in Gobichettipalayam, have a library, gymnasium and an evening school.  

It all started when Chakravarthy was in 9th grade, he went along with few friends went to the village in Erode to attend an education festival. “I came across families performing gymnastics on streets. No one in the village goes to school, as this is the only livelihood for them.”

Time passed and Chakravarthy went to college, but the plight of the tribals kept haunting him. He went alone in search of that village. “Only 27 children used to go to school in 2010 when I found the village. I tried convincing them about my ideas to educate all the children, but no one was impressed,” recalls Chakravarthy.

He also held talks with a few NGOs in Erode but none encouraged him. Then, in 2011, he created his own club, ‘My India My Creation (MIMC)’, and his maiden mission was to educate the tribal children with the soul-stirring line of Bharathiar, “Nallathor Veenai Seithan” as the inspiration for the project.

Gradually, 20 of school and college friends joined him and they continued visiting the villagers. “We succeeded in convincing them and this is how we started evening school for children.”

Investing all his pocket money and collecting donation from friends, he managed to buy teaching kits to develop an evening school. After sometime, the villagers gave him a building, which was used by the villagers to store things. “They asked me to shift my open ground school inside the room. Around 25 students could be accommodated in the room.”

It’s been five years now and the youth club celebrated their fifth annual day of the tribals welfare project recently. Marking the special day the youth who converted that common building into an evening school has now converted it into a library for school and college students.

After his discussion with the NGOs and industries like Smile Welfare Foundation and Sowbhagya Industries, a few children have got education support. The library consists of 515 books, which are donated by college students from Coimbatore, Tirupur and Erode. About 44 books have been sponsored by Vijaya Pathippagam, a bookstore.

Chakravarthy and his team have helped around 270 children to get education from that village. They have also rescued around 568 children from Tirupur, Erode, Coimbatore, Namak kal and Salem. In 2012, he also got a fund of '5 lakh from government to construct a gymnastic stadium.