Education is a vital human right and plays a key role in human, social, and economic development. Restricted access to education is one of the surest ways of transmitting poverty from generation to generation. Investing in education yields significant development benefits. Education reduces poverty, boosts economic growth and increases income and educating girls has a multiplier effect.

Our system for funding education is broken, and it’s hurting society’s most vulnerable. While several students across the world, despite of being intelligent and sharp, are unable to afford the basic level of education, the American Progressive Telugu Association (APTA) is changing things for the better. ASEP [APTA Student Education Program], enables to help poor and needy students back home in India. APTA strives to connect a benevolent and generous donor to a bright and needy student. ASEP offers educational scholarships for deserving students in order to pursue their education.

In light of recent events, the association hosted the annual education scholarship distribution event in several parts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The event has already been held in three towns covering Andhra Pradesh and Telangana on December 29, 2019 and is also going to be held on January 04, 2020 covering the various districts in Tirupathi.

The primary objective behind the event was to help the bright future thought leaders who have been struggling to cover the expense of their education because of the hardships at home.

This is not the first time that APTA has come forward thinking about the welfare of the citizens of India, especially around the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The event which was conducted in Hyderabad on December 29, 2019 was graciously hosted in LANSUM House in Jubilee Hills. The Chairman & Managing Director of LANSUM, who is also an ex-IRS officer, Mr. Umesh Kunapareddy was kind enough to host the event to its great success. The owner and direction of the LANSUM group, Mrs. Lakshmi also graced the occasion with her presence and made the event a successful one.

We definitely need more of such high spirited and compassionate people in the world to be able to help the underprivileged with the future that they deserve.

One location for this event is still yet to be conducted and is going to be held of January 04, 2020 in Tirupathi and the eligible students will only be welcomed from the districts of Anantapur, Chittoor, Chuddapah, Kurnool, Nellore, and Prakasham.

Aside from that, this isn’t the first venture that APTA has contributed to. Since its inception in 2008, the organization has till date donated over INR 6 crores towards several initiatives in the field of education and welfare of the underprivileged. This year itself, the organization has contributed over INR 2 crore, 10 lac in Hyderabad itself.

With this recently conducted scholarship program, APTA has plans to help over 1200 students in this just year and more in the years to come. The scholarship is expected to cover students from 10^th, 12^th standard and even in their inter and the ones pursuing any sort of professional degree.

It is an understatement that nothing could have been possible without the dedicated team of APTA which is why mentioning their contributions is an absolute must.

The primary team includes General Secretary, Banarasi Tippa; Vice President, Siva Molabanti, ASEP chairman, Siva Papolu; AWEP Vice Chair & Phoenix Women’s commissioner & Founder President Women Empowerment Foundation Mrs.  Lalitha Byra;  ASEP Vice Chair, Sameera Chavakula.

Apart from that, it is completely futile if we don’t highlight the contributions of the volunteers who worked day in and day in making the event a success in the Hyderabad centre. Some of the notable names include Srikanth Pasupuleti, Sridevi Naidu, Pullaiah Naidu, Rajendra Tippa.

Some of the notable guests that graced the occasion include Dr Rangaiah Setlam and Somisetty Sathyanarayana. The contributions of Uday Ravulapalli (APTA member), Koteswarao Kola (APTA member), Vinay Cheerla and Sai Krishna Kodeboyina also do need special emphasis for making this a grand success.

This event has proved to be a success and with that, there are possibilities that APTA will consistently rise and shine to the occasion to help the future of the nation and shape their path in the direction they want to pursue.

By Somapika Dutta