Bengaluru: Loo & behold! 70-yr-old government school gets facelift

BENGALURU: Thanks to a Bengaluru-based NGO, a 70-year-old government girls’ school in Malur is ready to welcome students to an entirely new campus.
As its name suggests, One School At A Time (a registered not for profit) focuses on rebuilding one institution at a time, equipping it with classrooms, toilets, kitchen and drinking water facility.
In early 2018, when OSAAT received a request from Malur Government Model Higher Primary Girls School in Kolar district, the school was in a dilapidated condition with broken floors, cracked walls and a roof on the verge of caving in.
Vadiraja Bhatt, managing trustee of OSAAT, said the school caters to over 300 students from classes 1 to 8. “Girls from humble backgrounds (labourers and small farmers) from more than 10 villages up to 20km away from Malur town attend this school. Despite many private schools nearby, it has good strength because of nine teachers and extra-curricular activities,” he said.
Due to leakage and weakened walls, the run-down school building was almost unusable for conducting sessions barring one classroom. The toilet was also in poor condition. “Providing a school with proper infrastructure and making it safe and hygienic will go a long way in educating every girl child in the community, leading to higher education and general well-being,” Bhatt added.
A team from OSAAT visited the school on multiple occasions between March and October 2018 and their engineering team came up with a plan to construct a two-storey building with eight classrooms, two toilet blocks, an office and a staff room. They worked with the local administration and the education department to get approvals and get the old building demolished. Their fundraising team proposed the project to a few donors and two corporate donors in India and an individual from the US came forward to fund it.
One of OSAAT’s largest projects, it cost around Rs 95 lakh. Bhumi puja was held in July 2019 and the building was ready in March 2020. The NGO got a few more donors in Bengaluru to chip in with furniture. Whenever schools restart, the school will open after a formal inauguration.