Pics: Abhijith N Kolpe
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (ANK)
Mangaluru Feb 19: Well-known dealers of Toyota vehicles United Toyota, organised ‘Guiding Stars ‘18’, a treasure hunt for the special children of Roman and Catherine School for the blind here at their showroom in Padil on Sunday February 18.
The event which was jointly organised by Round Table and CREDAI and co-sponsored by CEO of Diya Systems Dr V Ravichandran was flagged off.
Addressing the gathering Dr V Ravichandran said, "This event is a special and unique one. My association with Roman and Catherine School for the Blind has been for long now. I always prefer to do charity and hence donate 60% of my earnings to charity. Entrepreneurs and philanthropists should come forward to help others as we do not bring money when we are born, nor take along the wealth we earn when we die. Life should be lived not for oneself, but for others.” He gave umpteen examples of philanthropy and motivated the crowd to serve society in as many ways as they can.
He further congratulated Mangalore Coastal Round Table for their contribution in the field of free public education.
Project convenor, MCRT Neil Rodrigues said, "Mangalore Coastal Round Table has renovated many government schools in the last one year with funds raised from similar fund raising events which include government higher primary school, Bokkapattana and government high school, Deralakatte. The school's next project in line is government school, Car Street.
He explained the concept of Round Table, India’s national level objective ‘Freedom Through Education’ and how Round Table at Mangaluru was going beyond the concept of development of just four walls and a ceiling for a classroom through their local movement called ‘Experience Education’. He also highlighted the contributions of businesses and individual sponsors like United Toyota, Mahesh PU College, Mangaluru, CREDAI Mangalore Chapter, St George Homepathy and Garodi Steel to these initiatives.
CREDAI president D B Mehta said that it was a pleasure to partner with Round Table and mentioned the recent projects of Round Table that have been jointly executed and achieved great success.
For the last seven editions, Round Table Mangalore has dedicated a day of the year to champion the cause of special children. This year too was no different with ‘Guiding Stars 2018’. The special children from the Roman and Catherine School for the Blind and each participant from the public too felt that the experience was enriching – a spirit of competitiveness mixed with the flavour of true inclusivity.
The speciality of the event was that the route map was scripted in braille, a language that the visually challenged use to read. These braille clues led people to various points around the city, each team could progress only after the driver, his passengers and specially challenged navigator children, coordinated well enough to decipher the clues. The challenge is actually about communicating across natural barriers in order to decipher various clues.
The event concluded at Mahesh PU College. Ajith Rai Maladi distributed the trophies and mementos to the winners and runners’ up.
The first place was bagged by Srijith B S and team with visually challenged navigator Aditya Moodabidri (Guiding Star) and the runners-up was bagged by Devdas and team with visually challenged navigator M Kaif (Guiding Star).
Chairman of United Toyota Prabhakar Rao Aroor was present.
Chairman of Mangalore Coastal Round Table Sudeesh Karunakaran welcomed the gathering. Disha Prabhu compered the programme.