Special children at the health camp in Jamshedpur on Friday. (Bhola Prasad)

Akshay Kumar doesn’t resemble his more famous Bollywood namesake. No rippling muscles, no stunning stunts.

But the 10-year-old mentally retarded child from a needy Jamshedpur family is a fighter. Though his condition is medically classified “severe”, he travels from his Kadma home to Northern Town to study at the School of Hope, a cradle for 170 special children, including patients of mental retardation, autism, cerebral palsy and multiple disabilities.

And now, a corporate firm has decided to chip in and make his fight a tad easier.

Amway Opportunity Foundation (AOF), the corporate social responsibility (CSR) arm of Amway India Enterprise Pvt Ltd, will give Akshay and 29 of his needy schoolmates Rs 4,200 each per year to cover their education expenses.

“Our foundation is here to help these differently abled children from poor families. Supporting them makes us truly happy,” Alok Deep, area manager, Amway India (Bihar and Jharkhand), said after handing over the cheque of Rs 1.3lakh to the school’s authorities at a function where K. Upadhyay, DSP (law and order) and B.K. Singh, district programme officer (welfare), were chief guests.

School of Hope, set up in 1976, has around 20 per cent students below the poverty line. “We had never turned away any special student if he or she happened to be poor. But I admit that the money helps a lot,” said school principal Shyamala Raju.

She added that they had discussed the possibility of getting medical bills of the poor children reimbursed as well.

On how the cradle helps the special students, the principal said: “We are a day-care school and provide behavioural and speech training for our students to deal with society better.”

The school fits perfectly with Amway’s CSR vision of working with outfits that support education, healthcare and nutrition.

“We believe strongly in our commitment to children. We hope that our little contribution will help the children of School of Hope pursue their education and become self-reliant,” said Diptarag Bhattacharjee, Amway vice-president (east).

Last year, the foundation had donated sports gear, mattresses and hosted a health check-up camp on school campus.