The Pencil Man of UAE- Venkat Krishnamoorthy

"Inspiration is hard to come by, you have to take it where you find it." This article is to tell you about who I chose as a hero and why.

Hello everyone! I am Tulika Rawat, Grade 5, GEMS New Millennium School, Al Khail. Before writing this article, I asked myself- why do we need a hero? After a lot of thinking, I finally figured out why. We need a hero so that we stay inspired and motivated and we take one step forward towards our goal. They prove to us that no matter how much problem there is in the world, there are amazingly good people around whom we can count on to do the right thing. Heroes who inspire your life in a positive way are probably people who think like you. They will always make you a better person, no matter what. It can be anyone, your neighbor, or a great personality. I wrote this article, thinking that everyone reading this would be inspired by the story of this extraordinary and great man, who is not that well-known across the world. But he is famous in the UAE for all the noble deeds he has done. People fondly know him as 'The Pencilman of the UAE'.

Dr. Venkat KrishnamoorthyGulf NewsWhat pledges or promises do we make to ourselves when it is our birthday? The most common ones are- 'I am going to lose 5 Kg in a month' or 'I am going to take care of my new baby sister or brother'.  But Mr. Venkat Krishnamoorthy (fondly called Venkat) undertook a pledge of a different sort on his 50th birthday. He thought that it was now time to stop looking only after himself, but instead, to start looking after the needy. 

With a motto in his mind, he set off to accomplish the extraordinary, achieving a world record for collecting the largest number of stationary for charity in 24 hours (The previous Guinness record in this category received 4,571 kg in 2015, in Saudi Arabia). He now supports around 25,000 needy children every year across over 40 charity schools in Tamil Nadu and counting. 

The 57-year-old chartered accountant, who runs a software company, was born in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli. He has been living in Dubai since 1992. He is also called 'The Pencilman of UAE'.

Once by chance, a friend of Mr. Venkat, who ran a charitable school in India, was visiting Dubai with 7 kids from his school. They were staying with him. The kids happened to see a drawer full of used and old sharpeners, erasers, pencils, rulers, pens, etc. Then they said that all of that was a luxury for them. And now Mr. Venkat believes that that moment was the turning point.

Mr. Krishnamoorthy with all the stationary.inHe contacted all his friends in Dubai and asked them to donate used pencils. Amazingly, he was able to collect around 1,000 pencils in the time period of just one week! He immediately sent those pencils to those children. Imagine how happy they must have been after opening the box full of pencils, just for them! Ever since, his platform 'education4all' has collected and distributed more than 25,051kg of stationery items to charitable schools, NGO's, and the needy students in partnership with Engage Dubai under the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Both he and his wife make quarterly visits to the schools to see how the children are doing. Nowadays, he receives not only stationary items, but he also has found tiffin boxes and water bottles between all the stationary. He himself donated his daughter's and her friends' old school uniform to the children who desperately needed them.

Stay Happy!Akhil VizI hope you guys got to know more about Mr. Venkat Krishnamoorthy and his noble deeds through my article. So I would like to conclude by saying (or writing),' Stay happy, Stay inspired!!!'