“I HAVE no words to express my feelings. My dream has come true,” said a beaming Geeta (name changed). It was only last Thursday that she had told this correspondent that her one wish before she breathed her last was to enter a classroom. “I want to feel how it is to sit in a classroom,” she had said.

On Monday, the world as they knew, turned on its axis for Geeta and 25 of her friends—all HIV/ AIDS affected—when they stepped into the classrooms of a zilla parishad (ZP) school.

Following a report in The Indian Express on June 15 about schools in the Yashwantnagar suburb of Sangli not allowing HIV/AIDS affected children from the Bhagini Nivedita hostel to enter classrooms, the state Government and district administration swung into action over the weekend to ensure that 28 of the 40 HIV affected children were permitted to attend classes in two schools — as many as 26 in a zilla parishad school and two in a private management high school.

All 28 were welcomed to the respective schools around 10 a.m. today with flowers, chocolates and books. Meanwhile, it’s been decided that 11young children, aged around four, will remain inside the hostel for one more year as they may prove too young for the school teachers. One girl, aged 18, is engaged in vocational training in the campus itself.

When contacted, District Collector Rajendra Chavan said, “I was shocked when I read The Indian Express report and ordered a probe into the case. The Block Education Officer and headmasters of the schools visited Bhagini Nivedita the next day to find out the facts.” The other state Government officials who made a beeline to the hostel included officers from the District Women and Child Welfare Department and the state CID—the latter reaching Sangli on Saturday to take stock of the situation.

... contd.