Students in Amritsar initiate road safety project, repair road with help from community members!

The road connecting the villages of Jharunangal and Dhulka in District Amritsar, Punjab had deteriorated such that it was the cause of several road accidents. Unexpected pot-holes and ditches on the road had caused spinal injuries, hip dislocations and broken bones. Satya Elementary School, Dhulka had also been noticing a steady decline in attendance rates, all due to the ill condition of the road. Monsoons made the road completely unusable, further exacerbating the situation. 

The menace caused by the faulty road, however, did not go unnoticed by the students of Satya Elementary School, Dhulka, spurring them to initiate a road safety project. The children went door to door, approached the Village Sarpanch, community members and the students of the nearby school, informing them about the project and involving them in the solution strategy. Availability of funds was a major challenge; for this, the students approached the Sarpanch as well as the community members. The impassioned plea of the students received a resounding response! As a result, they could soon procure the road construction material and then, along with the community members, got on to repairing the road, also taking care to carry out repairs during the non-peak hours to avoid any inconvenience. Within a short time-frame of less than a month, the students’ efforts led to a repaired and safe road. 

Since the completion of the project, students have begun attending school with a new-found sense of exuberance; the village elders feel safer to travel to and from the village, and the drivers of two-wheelers are safely commuting. The Village Sarpanch commemorated the hard work of these students, calling the road between Dhulka and Jharunangal, ‘The Road to Change’!