Forget subsidies or cheap products, a store is soon launching in the city where the homeless can just walk in and pick up anything for free, for two days.
Last year, the story of a street store in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, had gone viral and now the 232nd official street store in the world is coming to Hyderabad, thanks to a group of five techies in the city.
The group that calls itself Idea Zombies has five members, Ashim Avtar Dash, Devesh Anand, Varun Dabbiru, Rahul Sharma and Srivani CK, all of whom work in the same company.
They are planning a one-day event in July and they have already started campaigns asking people for donations for the store.
And what is the store all about? Clothes, utensils, shoes, food etc. everything will be available for free for the homeless. Ashim says, “We are all spoilt by the excess availability of things. We are asking people to give back what they aren’t using. People can even come and donate on the day of the event or help out as volunteers.”
“It’s a noble idea and we are asking for clothes, shoes, toys, utensils, stationery items, spare mobile phones, umbrellas and more. They can be used or unused items,” says Devesh.
They also have permission from the official street store organisation in Africa and they have been recognised as the 232nd street store initiative in the world.
In the two weeks of launching their Facebook page, they have over 40 people responding, saying they would like to join hands for the initiative. They already have approval from S. Pankaja, deputy commissioner of GHMC, Serlingampally, and she has also agreed to join in on the day of the initiative.
The group has selected the abandoned road near Raidurgam police station to set up the store.
For the homeless: The store at Bhubaneshwar was an Internet-hit when its story was reported
Ashim adds, “We have also tied up with four NGOs and TCS Maitri and are asking our colleagues to help us out with crowd management.”
Talking about the group and explaining about its name, Ashim says, “We started this group called Idea Zombies because everyday so many of us have ideas about great things that we could do. But we deem them as not practical and sleep over it. We want to bring back the ‘dead’ ideas and our first idea is to have the street store in the city for the homeless.”
Another group in the city had also tried out the idea, but the event was cancelled because of the rains. But Idea Zombies have a backup plan. “We have planned it over two days and also have the option of shifting the event to our company’s godown in case it rains on both days,” says Ashim.
