| Hello, 02 October 2004 I will be running the Hartford marathon on Saturday, 9th October 2004. ( My Website ) I'm running this race with an objective of raising money for the basic education of underprivileged children in India. I'm doing this in association with an organization called 'ASHA-Stamford'. Here's a small subset of the activities 'ASHA' do: Funding schools for underprivileged kids, Rehabilitation and training for children with special needs, Schools for poor tribal children, Schools for the visually impaired, Orphanages for young children, Schools for mentally challenged children, Efforts towards eradicating child labor. The statistic shows that about 52% of the people in India are illiterate. Would you believe that female literacy rates in India are much lower than in sub-Saharan Africa? I didn�t want to, but it�s true. Or that one-third of all children aged 6-14 years (about 23 million boys and 36 million girls) were out of school? According to the Public Report on Basic Education investigators who visited a school in Salempur UP, the little children of classes 1 and 2 were huddled together like a herd of sheep and goats. The other children crowded the three small dark and dirty rooms that make up the school building. Except for the headmaster none of the teachers were teaching when the investigators arrived. This flagrantly dismal school was not an aberration. And it was only one of the several complex forces that was responsible for the dysfunctional education system in place today. Through Asha, I saw a way I could help. As someone who has had the privilege of receiving a fine education, I decided it was time to do my tiny bit to ensure that these children have a chance, a hope to get what was rightfully theirs � the right to dream big dreams. On October 9th, I will run the Hartford marathon on behalf of Asha. Yes, that's right, 26.2 miles - which I hope to do in 3 hours 45 minutes. It is no mean task I�ve set on to achieve and I am training hard for it. During the last 4 months of my training, I ran about 650 Km (400 Mi) in about 60 hours with an average of 25 miles a week. Today, there are over 66 Asha chapters worldwide: 45 in the US, 14 in India including Banglore & Chennai, and 7 in Europe, Singapore and Australia. Volunteers in each of these chapters take personal interest in identifying education-related projects in India, and supporting them through funds and other means. So, that's the story. Thank you very much for taking the time to read through this.For further details or to make a donation please visit my web page hosted by 'ASHA'. Even the smallest of your help can make a big difference in the life of a child. Thank you Gavaskar Manayath Training schedule phone: 203- 542-3510 [email protected] |
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| Pictures from the ASHA website. |
