Akurata Piyapath 1 (2024)
Saraswathi Tamil Vidyalayam, Warwick, Welimada
Akurata Piyapath began in March 2024, the batch's fifteenth year since leaving Zahira. It started not with a plan but with a letter, the principal of Saraswathi Tamil Vidyalayam, an estate school in Warwick, Welimada, wrote to say that some of his students had difficulty in affording school supplies that year. The batch decided to answer it collectively.
One hundred and fifty students received full books and stationery packs: texts, exercise books, pens and the ordinary supplies that decide whether a child takes part in a lesson or sits through it empty-handed. In an estate school under economic pressure, those are costs families feel first and cut first.
The drive was funded entirely by the batch and by companies belonging to its members, with Activ8 Asia joining as a corporate donor. Collections ran openly on the batch's WhatsApp group, with running updates, acknowledgements and corrections posted as they came in the same method every edition has used since. Twenty batchmates travelled up for the handover and made the distribution in person, during Ramadan.
Photographs from the day were not archived. The project video is the record that remains.
The drive has been repeated every year since, and the name has stuck — Akurata Piyapath, a path through letters.
Our school is located in a rural area in Welimada, where many children face financial difficulties. Today, the Zahira College Batch of 2009 generously contributed stationery for our students. It is extremely useful for our children, and we are truly grateful. We will never forget the efforts of the Batch of 2009, especially at a time when we are unable to meet all of our students' needs.