Skater in expedition across India to raise awareness of girl child education

Though skating in a city or his hometown Visakhapatnam would have turned the spotlight on him, he decided to skate the 6,000-kilometre long Golden Quadrilateral. He has been on the move, skating his way through cities, towns and villages, taking the message of child safety and the cause of education for the girl child. Talking to DT next, he said, “The cause needed more attention than the person. That is why I chose the golden quadrilateral that covers a large mass of the country.”

The trip that began in September and has spanned 96 days. The trip will end in December 11 at Hosur.

Ahead of the completion of his expedition in Hosur, he was in Chennai, after a whirlwind trip covering many areas around India including Tumakuru, Sira, Kolhapur, Pune, Vadodara, Delhi, Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Vishakhapatnam and Hyderabad. Rana has covered over 5500 kms and has collected funds to support the education of over 16,200 girl children.

Uppalapati said that he found one common reason for the low literacy rates of the girl child, “The average dropouts around 40 per cent of them in villages, mostly leave school due to the lack of resources, rather than the mindset.”

He said, “I also saw that in many families, while the boys were sent to the private schools, girls were sent to government schools. They are discriminated,” he said.

On his trip, Uppalapati said, “There were no surprises. Just the reaffirmation that things would be difficult,” he said with a laugh.

The initiative is part of the Titan’s awareness sessions for children on ‘Good Touch and Bad Touch’ as part of ECHO programme (Educate to carry her onwards’).