Thiruvananthapuram: A city-based non-governmental organisation is planning to play Santa to schools in flood-affected areas for the next ten months.
Sahridaya had started its ‘Gift a Smile’ project as a Christmas project to support school students from financially backward families. This January, they will start with rebuilding the libraries of Government UPS, Arattupuzha, and Government SNDP UPS, Aranmula. “We started ‘Gift a Smile’ initiative to bring a smile to students. So, last year we had identified school students from financially backward families, and gifted books and bags. This year, we plan to support flood-affected schools,” says Dr Ashin Mohan, a key volunteer.
The initiative now has the support of another city-based collective called Indus Cycling Embassy, who have proposed an online hashtag campaign called #librarychallenge. However Sahridaya members repeat that this is not just a book collection drive. “The project will also help understand how non-profit organisations can intervene in the rebuilding process. In that sense this is a social experiment,” says Sahridaya founder Akhil S G.
The group’s volunteers had visited some of these schools in Aranmula, Arattupuzha and Kuttamangalam. “At first we thought of other ideas like say providing for the bus fare of children in flood affected areas for a year. But during our visit, it struck us that the schools were badly affected. Labs and libraries were destroyed. We decided that we will do what we can. This project will go on for ten months, so that we give at least one smile a month,” says project coordinator Abhijith Renjith.
In the coming months, they hope to address the more moneyintensive needs like building lab infrastructure. “We intend ‘Gift a Smile’ to be a long-term initiative,” says Akhil.
