Onmanorama Impact | Award awaits Thrissur school active in flood rescue

Thrissur: A government school here will be honoured for the brave rescue operations conducted by its students during the floods last month. The State Youth Welfare Board has initiated formal proceedings before  according the honour.

Onmanorama had published a special feature on September 5, Teachers' Day, about the initiatives of this Girls Vocational Higher Secondary School (GVHSS) at Nandikkara. Its headmaster Rajan Thalore had started a professional training centre for swimming and water rescue in this river-side school back in 2017 and the training came handy for its students in the floods, the early report said. 

In the light of this article, the Youth Welfare Board has sought a detailed report from the authorities of Nandikkara GVHSS so that it can consider the school for an award. 

“Our state-level authorities learned about the brave gesture of Nandikkara GVHSS students and the foresight of their headmaster Rajan Thalore through an article which had appeared in Onmanorama. I was alerted about this from the headquarters. I immediately rang up Thalore and inquired about the swimming and water rescue coaching they offer their students. I have also asked for a detailed report with photographs so that we could consider the school for a special recognition or award as a note of appreciation for their brave gesture,” P.R. Sreekala, the district programme officer of the Board, told Onmanorama.

Sreekala noted that such far-sighted projects need to be encouraged in schools so that our upcoming generation will be equipped to handle adverse situations with confidence and presence of mind. “We appreciate your effort to reveal such positive stories which help cultivate hope in humanity,” Sreekala noted.

Responding to the news, the school headmaster Thalore said that it was not his vision that yielded good results, but the confidence and willingness of his students to volunteer for water rescue operations when their locality was in need of their skills.

“Our syllabus is theory-oriented. Students barely get an opportunity to manifest their knowledge. They do not get good laboratory experience which help them gain confidence in their own skills. I am proud to head a group of students who voluntarily jumped into the floodwaters and rescued their dear and near ones, making use of the skills they were imparted at the school,” he said.

Help for school camp, students

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Lions Club donated a large stock of stationery to the school. Mekson Balu, its pointsman for flood relief programme in  Kerala, came to know about the flood rescue operations carried out by the students. His organisation had also distributed about 24 trucks of relief materials in different parts of Kerala. 

“I had visited the relief camp at Nandikkara GVHSS, Thrissur, on August 19. The State had just survived the floods back then. We gave a truck-load full of sanitation accessories and clothes to the inhabitants of the relief camp functioning in that school. Later, on September 4, I got a phone call from school headmaster Rajan Thalore informing that about 1,400 students of Nandikkara village had lost their school accessories in the flood. The very next day I saw your news article and some videos about the rescue operations carried out by the students of Nandikkara GVHSS. I immediately mobilised some funds from the Tamil Nadu Lions Club and purchased 600 school bags, 9,000 notebooks, geometry kits, pens, pencils and scales for the students of Nandikkara school,” Balu said.

Balu had handed over the bulk of school accessories to the students at a function graced by Education Minister Prof C Ravindranath on September 7. Headmaster Thalore expressed his gratitude to the Tamil  Nadu Lions Club for its generosity. “I am motivated to carry out more innovative programmes in the school. It is indeed a privilege to watch the bravery of my students getting rewarded,” he said.