Just as has happened elsewhere in the rest of the world, the Covid-19 Pandemic has shut down much of India and the Sewing School in Amaravati is currently shut down. After ten of the first seventeen students at the Pushpa Sewing School finished the curriculum last February, the sewing school had become well accepted in the community and was clearly having a positive impact there. Another cohort group of students had joined the remaining students from the prior group and many of them were making steady progress toward completing the curriculum this summer, until a shelter in place order was issued throughout India in response to the Pandemic. It has disrupted everything in India except for the deeply rooted poverty that is so pervasive in the ghettos in the cities and in much of the rural areas. Amaravati has not been spared.
In a recent conversation with Gummadi Franklin, Pushpa’s founder and chair. Chairman Franklin was very positive about the school and the role he hopes it will continue to have in Amaravati, assuming the shelter in place order is eventually lifted. The school had come together very well and the landlord has generously minimized rental payments in view of what is hoped by all will be the temporary closure of the school. How well the school will be able to reorganized after the closure remains to be seen, but the elders in the community and the landlord want the school to remain. It has been welcomed in Amaravati.
A picture of the graduating class seated with their arms raised as they wait for their certificates is shown below. What happened here in the U.S. also happened in India. The Covid-19 Pandemic disrupted the entire country and has caused Pushpa to suspend its classes.
Two of the graduating students are picture below, one, who was chosen to speak to the gathering at the graduation ceremony and another who is receiving her certificate from Chairman Franklin. Also with the students and Chairman Franklin is the Teacher (Suzanne) and a teaching assistant.
Pushpa's mission is to help marginalized community members of rural Guntur District villages transition from migrant, subsistent lifestyles, dependent on seasonal labor and temporary shelter, to sustainable livelihoods in healthy communities. Its main goal is to work together with underprivileged (tribal) members of rural Guntur District villages to find ways to enable socio-economic change in small ways, one person, one family, one student, at a time, through projects in which the recipients themselves participate. (See http://pushpaproject.org/vision_mission.htm) . One of the elders in Amaravati is pictured below after he was given the honor of cutting the green ribbon in a ceremony for the opening of the school last May.
A lot of hard work went into establishing the school and there are many people to thank for their hard work and significant contributions. The Sewing School has now graduated its first class and it is especially gratifying to see that the labor and hard work is now being rewarded and that young people’s lives in Amaravati are being touched by those efforts. We are now awaiting further word as to further progress of the current students once the shelter in place directives in India are lifted. Pushpa will be there to restart the teaching when that happens.
The leaders of PUSHPA, both here in Arden Hills and in Andhra Pradesh, India are especially grateful for the support for the new sewing school from the Arden Hills Shoreview Rotary Club and Rotary District 5960 and have expressed their gratitude privately and acknowledged the Club’s sponsorship of the school by erecting the sign shown in the picture below.
We and Pushpa are thankful for the matching grant received from Rotary District 5960 and to the following Rotary Clubs for their generous support of our project: Belle Plain; Brooklyn Center; Forrest Lake; Fridley Columbia Heights; New Brighton Mounds View; Prior Lake; Roseville; St. Croix Falls; St. Paul No. 10; Siren Webster; West St. Paul Mendota Heights; and White Bear Lake.