Many of us are used to getting our children school uniforms for the new academic year. One man thought of putting the discarded uniforms to good use by donating them to children in community schools in remote villages, and also recycling them for use of those who do not know what a school uniform is.
Utpal Bhatt, 40, a government employee is the good Samaritan who first sighted the problem of these rural school kids when he visited a couple of rural schools during Gunotsav 2011 in November last year. “I saw many kids studying quite attentively, but their dresses were in tatters. And that of course did not match with their spirit, discipline and merit. Something inside me urged me to help these kids,” said Bhatt.
Bhatt shared this feeling on a social networking site with photos of these students and he got calls from NRI friends and relatives saying that they want to help these kids too. It was then that Bhatt started doing charity work of donating newly stitched uniforms to kids, and also collecting old school uniforms from donors in urban areas. He has started distributing these dresses to students of primary schools in villages.
“I visited primary schools in a remote village Sharupur Timbi in Karjan Taluka, Vadodara district,” said Bhatt. “Schools in this area have about 150 children of farm labourers and none of them knew what a school
uniform was!” he says. He went with a tailor and noted measurements of all these students, pulled in a cloth
merchant for this charity project and also roped in two NRG’s – Dr. Shamik Patel and Jayshree Patel from New
Jersey to donate for the uniform project.
Today, each of these 150 students has two brand new uniforms. And Bhatt has moved on to provide uniforms to
schools in other districts. “At present, I am focusing on schools in Kavant taluka of Mogra village and
schools in Meghraj taluka in Limbodara. Soon these kids would also be dressed in uniforms.”
“When I see these poor kids of public schools in interiors areas of the state, happily dressed in school
uniforms, I see a new progressive face of Gujarat,” says Bhatt.
