All they need are a few more bricks for their wall

Nina Martyris I TNN

Mumbai: Be a brick, buy a brick. Build a wall. Rock On.

That in essence is the message of the novel Brick Campaign launched by the SPJ Sadhana School to raise funds to extend the school building by two whole storeys.

The young director-actor Farhan Akhtar who inaugurated the drive in a brick-red Sadhana T-shirt, repeatedly thanked the school for making him part of the project, and said that as the father of two daughters it was reassuring to know that there were people out there who cared for children, all kinds of children, so deeply. And Akhtar stole many hearts when he complimented the children’s performance of the song Rock On, by saying that the next time he wanted to choreograph a song, he knew where to look.

The 35-year-old Sadhana School on the Sophia College campus educates mentally challenged children with the aim of transforming them into confident, happy and employable young people. It has a success rate of 93% and its alumni today hold jobs in hotels and offices across India. Like alumnus Jude Lobo and friends who work in the Taj kitchen and run to greet the vegetable van as if royalty itself is rolling up.

Sadhana is the only school in Mumbai which works with the ‘profoundly retarded’, those with an IQ below 20, many extremely aggressive and prone to fits. “We’ve had our thumbs and fingers broken many times,” says viceprincipal Dr Radhike Khanna in an astonishingly matterof-fact way. “But then, look at a child like Nihar, who today paints like Van Gogh.”

The Brick Campaign calls on well-wishers to contribute Rs 5,000 towards a brick. “Of course,” joked principal Sr Eileen Gaitonde, “We hope industrialists will buy up a whole wall.” Thanking Geeta Gopalakrishnan, whom she described as the “godmother of Sadhana School”, for creatively orchestrating this fund-raiser in a recessionary market, Sr Gaitonde elaborated on the thinking behind the drive. Calling it the “democratisation of generosity”, she said, “The distribution of wealth may not be democratised, but goodness and generosity are.”

Gopalakrishnan says she was inspired by the remarkable way Barack Obama financed his election tour, through the internet, with housewives and students sending him their mite, and the whole adding up to millions. Here too, many have stepped up to the plate in different ways: the BMC readily gave permission, Hafeez Contractor will design the extension pro bono, the Tata Group and its many arms is helping in a myriad ways, and by the end of the evening, one of the guests, documentary filmmaker Vibha Bakshi was moved enough to whip out pen and cheque book and sponsor ten bricks. She called it “a baby step”.

Every day anxious parents walk into Sadhana School, like the army officer who came in many years ago carrying his child who suffered 16 fits a day. The capacity-full school, which has 114 children, wants to take at least 75 more, and the building extension will make this possible. Today, the army officer’s son is Sardar Raminder Singh who runs his own cyber cafe in Chandigarh and drives his own scooter. Bricks and baby steps will help others to rock on as well.

(Those interested in donating can send in cheques to SPJ Sadhana School, Sophia College Campus, Bhulabhai Desai Road, Mumbai 400026. You can also email: spjsadhana@gmail.com)

GIVE ME RED: Farhan Akhtar flanked by Sanjana (L) and Anushka holds the first brick that will go into the Sadhana School extension