Allen Career Institute & students join hands to fight Covid

Hyderabad: Setting an example, the Kota-based Allen Career Institute (ACI) has announced that students from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh whose parents died of Covid can avail free coaching for national entrance tests for engineering and medicine.

The coaching is not just for students of the two States, but also those across the country where ACI has its presence, says Naveen Maheshwari, Director, ACI.

Giving details, he said the ACI has taken the decision after Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla held a zoom conference with the management of school and coaching institutes in Kota. Birla had discussed how to address the woes faced by people in the wake of Covid disrupting their lives.

Kota, an educational hub, is known as Kashi for education. "We don't want dreams of parents, who wanted to see their children become doctors and engineers, but, died due to Corona. Losing parents and sole bread-earners will have a long-lasting adverse effect on children and their dreams. It is impossible for many of the children, to think of education when they struggle to even to earn their daily meal," he said.

It was against this backdrop, the AIC decided to offer free coaching to students, who want to appear for the engineering and medical entrance tests; but their dreams were cut short due to loss of parents to Covid.

"If such students come to Kota for preparation, the AIC will provide them free food and hostel facilities; take care and prepare them to achieve their goals. Those who want to prepare in any part of the country can do so by contacting the nearest AIC center to avail the free preparation," said Maheshwari.

This is not the first time that Allen is doing it. Earlier, it has provided free training to children of soldiers who lost their lives for in the line of duty during attacks in Pulwama and others.

The AIC has already provided its building at Kota to serve as a special Covid centre with 200 beds for patients. They were given free food, oxygen and other needs. "We hope our initiative will help many children across the country to achieve their dreams to stand on their own feet and serve the country as engineers and doctors. They have been deprived of their due on account of losing parents to Covid," he said.

The center ran for 27 days and handled 502 patients. The maximum number of day admissions was 135. Apart from providing a healthy diet, a series of activities, like yoga, prayer, helped patients gain confidence and recover early. About 70 members of ALLEN and ALLEN Students' Welfare Society ran a 24-hour control room rendered services to ensure that patients, doctors and nursing staff faced no problems.

How to apply

Mahesh Yadav, academic head (South), said that he students from any southern State have to reach out to the AIC in their area and fill simple application forms, submit a government-issued certificate, that the parent died due to Covid or a medical sheet confirming that the death was caused because of the virus.