RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With many stu­dents strug­gling aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly be­cause of their par­ents/guardians’ in­abil­i­ty to af­ford school­books, mem­bers of the Shri Kr­isha Se­va Ashram in Princes Town have reached out to as­sist them.

Yes­ter­day, a team from the mandir went to the Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School to do­nate 700 text­books to chil­dren in need. The books ranged in va­ri­ety across all sub­ject ar­eas, in­clud­ing math­e­mat­ics, Eng­lish, sci­ences, so­cial stud­ies, busi­ness, lit­er­a­ture, so­ci­ol­o­gy and tech­ni­cal vo­ca­tion­al.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the spir­i­tu­al head of the Ashram, Pun­dit Ke­sha­va Go­sine, said COVID-19 had cre­at­ed prob­lems for many stu­dents, who fell back aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly as a re­sult. He said be­cause of job loss, many par­ents were un­able to af­ford school­books for their chil­dren and the mandir saw a need to fill that void.

“Hav­ing in­ter­act­ed with par­ents, we saw the need to help the school. Com­ing out of COVID, many par­ents at the Ashram voiced con­cerns about be­ing un­able to af­ford books so we de­cid­ed to find a way of re-gift­ing books for par­ents in need,” he ex­plained.

Say­ing that the mem­bers of the Ashram have been in­volved in char­i­ta­ble works through­out their com­mu­ni­ty, Go­sine said they al­so hoped to start an­oth­er book dri­ve for pri­ma­ry schools with­in their area.

“This coun­try is about love and our chil­dren need help. If you are the type to get in­volved with a char­i­ty and you feel a need to help peo­ple, then get in con­tact with us as we try to help many oth­er chil­dren,” Go­sine said.

He said it was un­fair to la­bel stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly if they came from a school that was sit­u­at­ed in a crime hotspot.

“With COVID, we had lit­er­a­cy prob­lems and the giv­ing of books is one ini­tia­tive to help so stu­dents don’t go in­to a life of crime. With sup­port, they will come out bet­ter,” Go­sine added.

Mean­while, Ashtie Go­sine-Ram­sumair, who works at Mara­bel­la North Sec­ondary School and is al­so a mem­ber of the Kr­ish­na Se­va Ashram, said the books will go a long way in as­sist­ing par­ents/guardians and stu­dents.

She said: “I feel blessed to make a link with the school and the Ashram be­cause I re­alised there was a need, as our stu­dents re­quired more re­sources to read. We want­ed to en­cour­age that,” she added.

Go­sine-Ram­sumair said many oth­er schools need­ed sim­i­lar ven­tures, not­ing that stu­dents whose par­ents/guardians could not af­ford books, need­ed as much sup­port as pos­si­ble.