NEW DELHI: In a major boost to the hearing and speech impaired children of the drought-prone Nagpur region in arid Central India, a Germany-based expatriate has pledged $ 1 million to build a school for them. The special school is being built at Thalesa village in Nagpur, where a school for the deaf and dumb is being operated for over five years by the Scientific Awareness and Social Welfare Forum (SASWF). Indian expatriates chipping in with donations where governments have failed to provide basic facilities in education are not new to India. Across the country, non-resident Indians, moved by the pathetic conditions in their home country, have dug into their pockets to provide the much needed infrastructure and help improve the social status of those regions. But the vast country that India is and it being the second-most populated nation of the world, a lot more is left undone, particularly for children's education. The donation has come from Prabhu Pramatma, who two years ago attended an SASWF function when the NGO ran the school from a government school's rooms. According to the NGO, Prabhu's donation was a spontaneous one, and they had not approached him for any financial support. Soon after the function he pledged his full support and himself laid the foundation stone for the new school building at Thalesa village, Dr A S Mann, who heads SASWF said. Prabhu has already spent $ 1 million to buy the land and build the school, he added. Prabhu himself works for an NGO in Germany that deals with the needs of poor children. He left India for Germany after earning a law degree over two decades ago. SASWF had just 16 kids enrolled when they began running the school in 2006. Today, they have 38 pupils, all special children.
