He loves going to school but the odds are mounting
Daily routine: His school friends ready to take over as Avantha's mother Niroshani brings him to school. Pix by Priyanka Samaraweera
He loves to go to school. As Avantha Osada Siriwardana’s wheelchair is taken down from the trishaw, a band of boys await him at the Molagoda Jayapala Maha Vidyalaya in Kegalle to take him to his class.
The Principal and teachers are also very supportive in ensuring he continues his education. They had even shifted his class from upstairs to downstairs.
Avantha, who turns 15 on November 9, and is due to sit the Ordinary Level (OL) examination next year may not be able to continue his schooling. For his parents are in severe financial crisis.
His father, S.M.P.G. Navaratne Banda, is a driver and his mother, Niroshani, who had been running her own beauty salon has been compelled to give it up.
Tragedy and hardship have been shadowing this family living in Randeniya, about five kilometres from Kegalle since the birth of Avantha but they had managed to keep their heads above water.
After Avantha’s birth, his parents had noticed that their younger son was not opening his eyes. Distraught, they had brought him to Colombo when he was just five days old and been told at the National Eye Hospital that a “visha beejayak” (germ) had entered his tender body.
The frequent hospital visits and admissions started then lasting two years with the baby losing sight in one eye. It was when he was around five years that the parents who had been attempting to cure Avantha’s eyesight realized that he was not developing like a normal baby. He could not sit up or stand. More hospital stays and braces followed but his parents somehow sent him to school.
Avantha in class: Intent on his school work
Even amidst the high expense of bringing Avantha to Colombo often for his medical issues, they were financially stable, with a little support from the boy’s grandfather.
Then came COVID-19 followed by Sri Lanka’s severe economic crunch, while personally they also faced the death of Avantha’s grandfather which has sent them careening down into an abyss of debt.
Tika, tika yata giya, says Niroshani, going into detail how she had to close her salon when the pandemic hit.
Their home on 80 perches of land has been mortgaged and her husband’s salary goes straight into the bank as the loan instalment. Now they are borrowing from here and there at high interest rates and attempting to sell the property but having got it under Swarnabhoomi, buyers are reluctant to touch.
But Avantha goes to school somehow accompanied by his mother and when he arrives at the school gates, the other boys wheel him on planks placed by Navaratne up to his class. Whenever he wants to pass urine, as it is a mixed school, the boys tell the girls to leave the class, surround him and let him do so into a bottle.
Avantha is very clever at computers, says Niroshani, lamenting however that his school career may be cut short even before he sits his OLs as earlier they had paid only Rs. 150 a day for the trishaw to take him from home to school and back (12 kilometres both ways) but now the hire has shot up to Rs. 1,000 a day which they are unable to meet. How long the family can face this cost only time will tell.
| A plea from Avantha’s mother | |
| “Help us,” is the plea of Avantha’s mother, Niroshani, who is a diabetic but committed only to educating her son, disregarding her physical woes.“I need around Rs. 200,000 to re-start my beauty salon and help my family to stand on its own two feet,” she says, with conviction. If amidst this economic crisis affecting all and sundry, anyone can spare a little cash, her appeal is to send it to her account. Her bank account is: Commercial Bank (Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 2); Account Name is: S.M.P.G.N. Banda; and Account No is: 8500007810. Avantha’s parents’ mobile is: 0771955385.
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