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Employment > Awards > N.C.P.E.D.P. - Shell Helen Keller Awards 2002

P. Suryanarayana: Rehabilitating blind beggars through self-employment

Suryanarayana's success results from his tenacity and quiet resolve. He has an all-consuming passion to help persons with disability stand on their own feet.

Suryanarayana lost his sight in 1955, when he was only 15 years old. But his grand vision has brought self-respect to many other visually impaired persons.

Born in the town of Tenali in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, Suryanarayana started his education in a school for the blind in the neighbouring town. He soon realised that the education he was acquiring at the school would not get him far. Having a passion for music, he decided to learn the harmonium. He set out in search of a guru and survived by selling books on trains. Suryanarayana finally found a guru in the famed harmonium player and singer, Guru Vidyanagaram. Within six months, his guru decided to send the young disciple to village performances.

From his meagre earnings, Suryanarayana started providing clothes to the poor, adding one person every year (he counts 34 people he is supplying clothes to these days).

In 1983, he formed a Society for the welfare of disabled persons called ‘Sri Venkateswara Andha Vikalangula Seva Sangham’. The society members are blind beggars who are encouraged to forsake begging and take up other means of livelihood. Over the years, the Sangham has rehabilitated 20 beggars through self-employment schemes. The Society also sanctions pensions to persons with disability, provides loans under its self-employment scheme and awards scholarships and books for needy students.

Suryanarayana has also doggedly pursued his dream to provide houses for all the Society members. After several years of petitioning, the State government has allotted three acres of land to the Society, on which the members have now set up a residential colony.

From clothes for one person every year to reforming blind beggars, Suryanarayana has demonstrated what one man’s resolve can achieve.

Sri Venkateswara Andha Viklangula Seva Sangham
Chandra Babu Naidu Colony
Merespeta, Tenali
Guntur District
Andhra Pradesh

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