There are
about 155 children stranded in a village in Assam and relief has not reached
them yet.
It all began when I read the above SOS posted on a friend’s Facebook
page. The village in question was near her ancestral village and she was trying
to figure out how to help the children and other villagers. She had raised the
plea in the hope of finding other like-minded people.
Thus began a very interesting journey that provided us with a
unique opportunity to help a flood afflicted village in Assam while providing
employment to a drought affected village in Maharashtra.
A journey that brought forth the incredible kindness of
strangers, the generosity of corporates and the common man, the joy of seeing
little faces break into beautiful smiles, the shy offer of tea and fruits, the
pride of a people fighting in the face of adversity and the contentment of a project
taken to completion.
When someone reaches out with genuine intention, support
pours in. Once a bunch of people volunteered to help, the next step was to get
immediate relief to the villagers. A crowd funding platform was identified (Ketto)
and messages were sent out. In a matter of days, about 750 Kgs worth of food,
clothing and other basic necessities was collected in Bengaluru and transported
free of cost courtesy Air Asia and another lot of about 450 Kgs was sent from Hyderabad
via JetAirways where the airport charges were paid.
Friends based in Guwahati, Assam travelled to the village with
the relief material and came back with a list of things that would be required
in the near future. The list included blankets, mosquito nets, stationary for
the children and medical kits.
While in the process of identifying a vendor for the
blankets, we stumbled upon an idea. One of us works with an organisation –
Shivprabha Mahila Gruh Udyog, based out of Lonwadi, Maharashtra. The
organisation teaches life-skills and provides employment to the wives and
mothers of farmers who have committed suicide. The women are skilled in needle
work and sewing. After speaking with Amol Sainwar, the founding director of the
above mentioned organisation, it was agreed that the women of Lonwadi would
stitch 100 godhdis (blankets) for the children of Sildubi, Assam. The material
was sourced from a local vendor and work began in earnest. Meanwhile, some of
us decided that we wanted to personally visit Sildubi and decided upon the 1st
-2nd of November.
We sent out mails to a handful of friends and family to
sponsor the blankets. The message was shared from one circle to another and within
9 days, we had the required funds. Not a single person questioned our motive.
Not a single person rained on our parade. The kind of trust that was placed on
a bunch of citizen volunteers with zero experience in social work was stunning.
On a parallel, we sent out requests for used but clean
blankets and got an overwhelming response from the citizens of Bengaluru and
Hyderabad.
Inspite of minor hitches (learnings), the godhdis were
transported to Hyderabad via a bus albeit to a garage in the other end of the
city. By 20th October 2017, thanks to the efforts of another helpful
friend, the godhdhis reached the house of one of our citizen volunteers in
Hyderabad. By 23rd October, the number count of blankets had gone up
to over 200 and we were looking at options for transportation and, funds for
the same.
This time around, we didn’t even have to send out a message.
Help came knocking on our doors in the form of the Telangana Events and
Exhibition Management Association (TEEMA). They not only agreed to foot the
entire transportation cost, but also helped us connect with the CSR arm of
GATI. Once the head of CSR at GATI was convinced, he promised to get the goods
delivered to Guwahati by the 1st November. This may not sound like a
big thing, but in reality, it is huge. Normally, it takes about 15 days for the
transportation of goods from Hyderabad to Guwahati. True to their word, GATI
delivered the entire lot by the 30th October, in 6 days flat. We
don’t know how they managed it, but when the news reached us, it gave us our
morale a massive boost.
The mosquito nets, medical kits were sent across via Postal
service from Bengaluru.
Three women and a child (one of them was the person who
raised the initial SOS – Labhita, Garima, Uma and Ini) set out from Bengaluru
and Hyderabad for Guwahati on 1st November.
We set out for the village the next morning. We were all
looking forward to the distribution, but it had to be postponed to the next day
as it was a four hour drive and also because the sun sets earlier than in the
other parts of the country.
We were put up in Camp Rhino, a resort owned by Rubul Sharma,
who simply opened his still flood affected resort for us because we had come
all the way to help his people.
Sildubi is a village that gets affected every year due to
floods. It is located on the fringes of the Kaziranga National Park. The
villagers say that almost every year they are displaced for a couple of months.
The stilt houses they have built usually give them some kind of protection but
this year, water went up as high as the roofs. The villagers practice
agriculture and fishing. In addition, every house has a loom where the women
weave beautifully. They have a single temporary structure that functions as a
school and for the younger children; they have a similar smaller structure that
serves as the ‘anganwadi’.
When we got there, the children sneaked out of the school to
check on the new arrivals and were promptly herded back by the
headmaster/village chief.
The women folk were the next to arrive. Standing discreetly
trying to make out what the 3 and a half women were upto.
Labhita’s
father who had insisted on accompanying us and who had been one of our links to
the village took charge and helped with the distribution.
The blankets and mosquito nets were quickly handed over by the
children to their mothers/ grandmothers, but the paint book and crayons were
immediately put to good use. We were offered tea and a lot of smiles; we were
invited inside homes and asked to share meals. They displayed their looms and
their talent with weaving and got into a discussion on the trouble in getting
yarn and the lack of marketing.
The blankets from Lonwadi, Maharastra got special attention –
from one set of women who understood and respected the value of hard work to
another. From one set of women who fight against all odds to survive to
another. The blankets became a symbol of self reliance and self sustenance, just
like they were meant to be.
Assam is a blessed state. There is nature in abundance in the
form of greenery and wildlife. Her people are welcoming and warm. The roads are
not half as bad as the roads in Hyderabad and Bengaluru. And her villages are
full of talent.
The journey of the blanket taught us many things. It taught
us humility; it taught us perseverance and gratitude. It taught us that the
frailest of the bodies held the grittiest of hearts. It taught us that this
world is full of generous people. The biggest learning though, was that anyone,
absolutely anyone can help, if only they made up their minds. It took 2 women
and a handful of willing helpers about four weeks to put things together so an
entire village could sleep in relative warmth. Imagine how much more can be
done if more people joined in.
When you want something, the entire universe
conspires in helping you to achieve it -- Paulo Coelho
