R ARIVANANTHAM
CHENNAI, NOV 21
Round Table India (RTI), a non-profitable NGO consists of young entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 40 as members, has built as many as 7,890 class rooms under its flagship philanthropy programme ‘Freedom Through Education’ across the nation since 1996, said RTI Area II office-bearers Santhosh and Vijayarghavenda here recently.
Addressing at a mega press meet organized to mark the RTI Week at a leading shopping mall in Chennai, office-bearers of RTI Area II under the jurisdiction of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Nellore along with the heads of the Ladies Circle, the duo said, “With a view to reach out to the underprivileged children, since the year 1998, Round Table India across the country started adopting projects aimed at providing quality school infrastructure, and then in 1998 the National Project of Round Table India “Freedom Through Education” was formalised, in pursuit of educating the underprivileged children.”
Round Table India’s focus on building infrastructure is aimed at promoting Education for Posterity and hence Round Table India has put in colossal efforts to build FTE School Blocks across the nation.
“We identify schools for the underprivileged that are operating from dilapidated or open structures; schools that have land available but little resources to take up big-ticket expenditures like construction. It is here that Round Table India steps in and builds school blocks with amenities across India to help such efforts and hands over newly constructed quality school blocks to the school administration,” they added.
The duo said the Round Table India Week is celebrated for a week from November 14 every year.
This year too, various welfare schemes were provided to transgenders, differently-abled persons, etc. in order to promote equality.
They explained in detail about their activities, including awareness programmes on cancer, hair donation, screening for breast cancer, sexual abuse of children and donation of calipers and limbs etc.
They also said that they had facilitated free pediatric heart surgeries and ambulance facility for children, developed specially designed wheel chairs in collaboration with IIT and distributed them to around 200 people. Apart from this, it is helping more than 500 beneficiaries in collaboration with financial institutions, the duo said.
An office-bearer of the Ladies Circle said that that they got enormous response from the student of Sri Ramachandra Medical College and Research Centre for hair donation camp for cancer patients recently. A total number of 30 eligible students with 11.5 inch long hair donated for the cancer patients.