About Praveen Chakravarthy in 5-61/5, Santosh Nagar, Anjani Street, Kakinada, Vakalapudi

PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTHY

THE MAN BORN TO SERVE

When we look at or hear about some famous or infamous people, we tend to think that some are born to do this or that, some to enjoy, some to suffer and yet some to create history, but, very few to serve fellow human being. This man PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTHY is one such rare person. He was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was born in a below average family in East Godavari district in the post bifurcated Andhra Pradesh. As a proverbial saying goes, he evinced interest in helping people in need from his childhood. He inherited this rare quality from his father and grandfather, who were active in social service when he was born and he grew under their stewardship.

During his childhood, when someone asked him what he wished to do in future, he never said I wanted to become something, but he would laugh and say ‘I wish to help children who do not have clean clothes to wear and support those who are not sent to school’. When he saw a child beggar on the road, asking for money, as a child he asked his father to take him home and give some food. One day, when he was going with his grandfather, he saw a polio affected girl crawling on her buttocks. He then asked his grandfather, why she was not able to walk like they did. His grandfather patiently explained about the polio disease and other inborn physical disabilities and told him that people thus affected cannot function like normal people. Since, his father and grandfather were social workers; he used to see blind children and poor children in torn or rag clothes coming to them stinking. He did not flinch his nose or averted their presence, but used to keep looking at them with awed countenance. These incidences and many more made him think about poverty and other social and biological constraints that made people suffer, for no fault of them.

Knowing his interest in other people’s welfare and witnessing his genuine involvement with neighbors and community, his father sent him to do his bachelor’s degree in Theology. His father thought that reading Theology would give him more exposure to humanity and the inventible suffering in human living. Praveen, too though did not understand the full impact of his father’s choice understood the basic need to equip himself with theological implications in human living. He graduated in Theology and after his return, his father encouraged him to continue to do any work that he chose befitting to his interest and ambition. Ever since that day, PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTHY has not looked back and today is a prominent social worker in Andhra Pradesh state. He has achieved so much in the field of child protection and rehabilitation line and rescued and rehabilitated thousands of children. Realizing the plight of women and poor families in rural areas in fetching potable water for their day to day water needs, he started digging bore wells in rural region and has helped hundreds of communities get safe and clean water in their own premises and areas. Apart from doing justice to these activities, he has been distributing wheel chairs to crippled people, recuing women from prostitution and creating employment avenues for them and extending financial help tens of hundreds of children who cannot pursue higher education due to poverty.

Today, the name PRAVEEN CHAKRAVARTHY is heard in every social circle in Andhra Pradesh and many other parts of the country.