Until recently, no one knew of the existence of Gonduguda, a tiny Adivasi hamlet in the Nirmal district of Telangana. The Gonds in the hamlet, living inside a forest, remained closed off from the rest of the world, and as a result of this, no one in the little village ever went to school.
“They live inside a forest and face many hardships. Until now, the government didn’t know of their existence,” says Raja Narsaiah, a youngster from the neighbouring Dasturabad village.
However, with the intervention of 32-year-old philanthropist Naresh Kadari and his foundation – Grameen Support Foundation – a 2-km kachcha road has been laid. And this road has enabled five Gond children to enroll at a nearby government school, the first Adivasis from the village to go to school.
Naresh Kadari’s foundation helps empower women by giving them employment opportunities. It was during an interaction with tribal women that he heard of Gonduguda for the first time, he says. Gonduguda has a population of just 150 people.
“I learnt that several people in the hamlet had died due to snake bite, as the others could not even take them to hospital as there was no road,” he tells TNM.
But what shocked him more was that nobody from the hamlet had ever been to school.
Taken aback by this, Naresh and his friends, including the ex-Sub Inspector of Dasturabad, Nagapuri Srinivas, decided to construct a kachcha road for this village under the aegis of his foundation. The road cost them Rs 40,000.
N Srinivas, who has been now transferred as Circle Inspector of Luxettipet in Mancherial, shares, “I had a friendly relationship with a road contractor. He had lent his road roller to us for free of cost. We had hired a JCB, and the villagers volunteered with tractors. So within a tiny budget of Rs 40,000 we could lay the road.”
Once the road was constructed, Naresh then helped enroll the children in the neighbouring school. They also hired a bullock cart to take the kids to school every day.
“We have paid a villager for this – his job is to pick up and drop the students to and from school every day,” says Naresh.
He has now approached the government to construct a permanent road for the village.
“I couldn’t wait for the government to acknowledge the problem and then sanction funds for the road. It would have taken at least 3-4 months for it to take action. But I was impatient and thought that I could provide temporary relief to them with a kachha road,” he says.
In a bid to bring in volunteers for the construction of the road, Naresh organized a 4-km marathon, involving several villagers and the police department.
However, the recent spate of rains has damaged this road.
“Rains have severely damaged the roads, and the water stream has eroded away half of this road. The children are now forced to walk into the water stream, which could be perilous. We are approaching the District Collector soon to lay a permanent road with culverts here,” says Naresh.