: No One Visited in Decades: Civil Service Officer Sets up School in Remote Andhra Village #IndiaNEWS #Andhra Pradesh In the Maddibanda village of Chinturu Mandal, generations at end have never seen

No One Visited in Decades: Civil Service Officer Sets up School in Remote Andhra Village #IndiaNEWS #Andhra Pradesh
In the Maddibanda village of Chinturu Mandal, generations at end have never seen a school, and the concept of education has not existed in their lives. This is because the villagers belong to a tribal community known as Kondareddy, which has been classified as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG).
The tribals continue to live a nomadic lifestyle of shifting cultivation, and rely entirely on forest produce for their livelihood. The primitive and shy community speaks aboriginal Telugu, and are natives of the land. The hamlets are geographically separated, each having five to ten houses on a hilltop.
Every Friday, they descend the hilltop to sell forest produce and buy weekly supplies, before returning home. The nearest hamlet in the village is an hour-long walk, and the farthest is situated about four hours away from Boddu Gudam, after which there is no road. The tribals are unaware of the specific distance, and their only way to measure it is in the context of the number of hills they cross before reaching the hamlet.
However, six months ago, Venkata Ramana Akalu, became the first Deputy Collector in 20 years to walk the distance and reach the remotest hamlets in the area. The officer has reached out to these villages by convincing the tribals to build a residential school for the children in the area.
Ramana Akalu
Thanks to his efforts, today, 28 children sit under the bamboo and thatched roof structure every day, to take informal education. Ramana says that a few of them will perhaps one day move to mainstream education, and no longer lead a primitive lifestyle.
“I travelled for half an hour from the office, and then walked for another hour before I could reach the first hamlet,??? the 37-year-old recalls. Ramana is a project officer with the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA).
‘The path to the hills’
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