College comes to the rescue of a young girl in Sivakasi

The lockdown has brought the life of J. Vigneshwari to a standstill. It has complicated her life, which had never been a bed of roses since her childhood.

The motherless girl has to take care of her aged father, who had undergone surgery a few months back. The lockdown has totally shut down her only option of a part-time job that she had been going to for sometime.

After her father, T. Jayashankar (52), who was a loadman, complained of pain in his leg a few months back, he had to go under the knife. The consequent economic crisis also threatened Vigneshwari’s college education.

The girl, who had secured 897 marks in class 12, despite discouragement, from her father, joined the commerce stream in the Government Arts and Science College in Sivakasi.

“I told my father that I always wanted to get a job in a bank after graduation and promised to juggle education and s part-time job,” she said.

However, she could not manage it that easily. Vigneshwari had to skip college for a couple of months, and even could not take up the third semester as she had to take care of her father.

She had managed to pay her college fees with the government scholarship and some money given by her grandmother from her savings.

“Even now, I have to cook at home, take care of my father, go to college and also take up part-time job in the next street,” the young girl said.

The work was also time-consuming and fetched her a very paltry wage of around ₹10 an hour. She was getting a maximum of ₹50 in a day.

“I could not even go there regularly,” she said. Her father had made some borrowings in the neighbourhood to make both ends meet.

The only benefit the family has got so far is ₹1,000, rice and groceries from the ration shop. “I have to pay ₹1,000 monthly rent,” she said.

It was at this time that the teaching faculty of the Government College came up with the idea of distributing benefits to poorest of the poor students.

“Vigneshwari is not the only poor student in our college. Many of them are from below poverty line families. We got a list of poor students from the teachers,” said S. Suresh, Head of the Commerce Department.

All permanent faculty members, led by the Principal, N. Gandhimathi, bought rice and other grocery items by mobilizing some funds among themselves.

A total of 59 students were selected in the first phase. While some of the students came to the college and collected the assistance, for other students who could not come out under lockdown situation, the teachers made door delivery of the goods.

“Most of the students are from the lower economic strata. Their parents work in fireworks units or in printing units. Since, most of them do not have an income now, we thought of helping them,” Mr. Suresh said.

The teachers were ready to help more such students, he added.