Gangamma was the third child of Mogulamma and Venkataiah who hailed from Pallegadda Thanda. Like her two elder siblings she was also born normal but when she was two, she suffered severe fever and when her parents took her to the hospital the doctor there gave her an injection. After this she lost sensation in one of her legs, and when her parents informed the doctor, he diagnosed the fever as Polio attack and said he would not be able to do anything. So they brought Ganga back home. For the next few years she would accompany her parents to work in the fields as agricultural laborer. Ganga’s family came from very poor background and every one in the family had to work and earn if they were to eat a square meal a day.

Seeing that she was becoming more and more of a burden on her parents Ganga decided to move to her elder aunt’s place in Gundumal. There she continued to stay, doing work if she felt or just helping her aunt around the house. The social worker from the project would come to the village on regular visits to do follow up of the existing group. She met Ganga and facilitated her to join the group, so that she would be able to learn about the rights and entitlements of PWD. In one of the meetings, the issue of Ganga and her leg was brought up and she put in an application to the group to get herself operated on for corrective surgery. The other members also felt that her twisted leg could be straightened, and so after they assured the social worker that they would take care of her after her surgery, Ganga was sent to the Kamineni Hospitals for correctional surgery to her leg.

Once she came out of post-operative care, Ganga came back to the village where she would go to the local Neighborhood Center for physiotherapy, which was supported by her fellow members of the group. She got good support from her aunt who ensured that she got regular amount of nutritious food. Under such care, Ganga blossomed and was able to recover really fast and started walking almost normally.

Ganga had always thought that she would never ever get married because no one wanted to marry a disabled girl. But her ideas were proved wrong totally when a man from her own village of Pallegadda Thanda, himself non-disabled, came forward to marry her. Even though she is married Ganga has not forgotten the positive presence of the group in her life and still attends the group meetings and takes active part in all its activities. She is very happy, her husband dotes on her and she has in all senses of the term, come home.