Kunnapattu is a village 6 or 7 km away from Mamallapuram.
The tribal community that we began to follow at the end of last year is made up of about 50 families who have lived in the village in a fairly stable way for many years now.
The population partially lives in small concrete blocks built by the government several years ago and partially still in the typical huts made of mud and palm leaves.
The election of the new panchayat leader led to an explicit request to take care of the poor community and try to improve the standard of living of the most vulnerable inhabitants, especially children and elderly.
In the village there are about 40 children who already attend school more or less regularly, especially the primary school, easily reachable on foot; the secondary one, on the other hand, is several kilometers away and very poorly served by public transport.
In January we were therefore contacted by the Panchayat who made a small public building available to make it an after-school and meeting center. We were also provided with free labor to renovate both the building and the nearby drinking water well.
So in February we finally inaugurated the afternoon school while at the beginning of Apri we started to offer food: a free meal for all children who go to school and attend our after-school activities regularly (about 25 out of 40), an initiative that is now commonplace for all the tribal villages were we operate.
In the next few days we will also repair a small room (which can be seen in the background of the breakfast distribution photos) that will soon be used to cook and store vegetables and provisions instead of the cook’s home that we are temporarily using.
