Rana Uppalapati kick-started a 6000-km tour of the golden quardilateral on skates with an aim to educate the underpriviledged girl child. SHALINI SAKSENA caught up with him during his Delhi leg of the journey
Think of the girl child and the first thing that comes to one’s mind is Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao Yojana — a personal campaign of the Government that aims to generate awareness and improve the efficiency of welfare services intended for girls. However, this is not the only yojana by the Government for the girl child; there are several other schemes that have been launched. And then there are individuals who are working towards bettering the lives of the girl child by raising money. One such person is Rana Uppalapati from Visakhapatnam.
Uppalapati has embarked on a 6,000-km journey of the golden quadrilateral on skates to raise funds for the education of 25,000 underprivileged girl children. The businessman, who has Titan showrooms in Vizak, was in the Capital after completing 2,500 km of his tour and has already raised money for 9,000 girls.
Though he has another 3,500 km to go and raise money for another 19,000 girls, the skater is optimistic that by the time his tour comes to an end in the second week of December, he would have accomplished his target.
As Uppalapati continues his journey and people Tweet about it, the chances of raising the money and reaching his target go up. In case of a shortfall, he intends to approach and reach out to people who have not been targeted.
“I have come a long way since I started my journey from Hosur in Bengaluru. To begin with, the response was lukewarm but now that I have completed over 2,000 km, people have understood that I aim to complete the journey and not give up mid-way. This has helped. Now that I am in Delhi, there is more enthusiasm among people to come forward and donate for the cause, which is Rs 3,800 per girl child for a year. Also, it is not as if I am personally collecting the funds. People can directly log on to Nanhi Kali and or IIMPACT and donate. This way, they will know that the money has gone to the underprivileged girl child and no one else,” Uppalapati tells you.
The idea to skate and raise money took root earlier this year. Uppalapati wanted to carry forward the message of education to carry her onwards (ECHO) and the difference between a good and bad touch for girl’s safety by using his ability to skate and writing and speaking skills.
However, he wanted to take this message on a more sustainable and scalable manner and not on an individual level since he didn’t want the focus to shift on him. Hence, the idea to collaborate with Titan came up since their presence is all over the country. That he has a business association with the company helped him in his endeavour.
“The cause is very large and needs a lot of people to work towards it. My call for action is — if I am prepared to take 60 lakh steps to skate, are you prepared to take one step to educate the girl child? I skate through villages, towns and cities and sensitise young girls about good and bad touch and also go through the company’s network to raise money,” the 37-year-old tells you.
To embark on such a journey required preparation. Uppalapati already knew how to skate but the challenge was to skate on a rough road surface, unlike the smooth skating rink. “I didn’t approach this journey as a sportsperson. Initially, there were a few difficulties. To begin with I would skate at 15 km an hour; I developed blisters; the Western Ghats was tough to manoeuvre as well. But I knew I could overcome these obstacles. Food was also an issue. It took time for his system to get used to skating long hours and his stomach to get used to the food from different parts of India. Once I crossed Mumbai, my body got used to conditions and now I can skate at 20 km an hour and cover a distance of 80-100 km a day,” Uppalapati tells you, who began his journey on September 5, 2018.
Luckily for him, there were no apprehensions in the minds of the people who came forward to donate since a lot of preparation had already been done even before the journey started. His family too had some concerns given the road conditions in the country. But because of his association with such a big organisation.
He chose skates because the idea is to bring in ‘resources for a cause’. “The words themselves denote action. It means it has to show there is some action. Skating such a long trip sounds humanly impossible; I wanted to show that it is possible including the seemingly impossible task of educating the girl child. This is the correlation between my skating and the campaign,” Uppalapati says.
According to him, the reason why such campaigns work which stems from his personal experience is that there is a need to have a structured format for the idea itself. It is not something that one can sit at home and achieve.
What he has learnt till now on his journey is people’s views on whether they want to support or not. “Some of the beliefs that I had were reaffirmed when it came to people’s views on how they would support a cause or not as well as relearning how children are from smaller towns. You tend to grow in a manner on how you approach the difficulties you face. On a personal level, this tour was not for self-realisation but for a cause that I intend to aim,” Uppalapati tells you.
