Kerala needs our Support and Prayers

Kerala is one of the beautiful states situated in the southern part of India. This year the state witnessed unpleasant and unexpected rain. Kerala is very famous for its natural beauty and vegetation. This beautiful place recently became a victim of unexpected floods. This has led 4 out of 5 districts into complete suffering. Two years back my city (Chennai, India) faced a drastic flood and we received support from various parts of India. But the flood by which Kerala is affected now is something that never happened in the past 50 - 100 years. Some people even say this is one of the worst floods of the Century. Media is covering the actuals only to some extent. There are still lots of inaccessible places in Kerala where there are lots of people. Some facts from the floods are:

• 4 out of 5 districts affected severely.
• Some villages have completely vanished.
• Some villages are still inaccessible by the rescue team.
• Over 3 lakh people are homeless and 175,000 people are staying in relief camps.
• When the state is viewed from the top view, we will be able to see water everywhere.

We are running a charitable trust called "Sushaanthi Seva Charitable Trust". I even created a steemit account (@sushaanthiseva) for the trust yesterday. I will try to post blogs on our activities in the future. As a team, we have been doing lots of activities in different streams for the past 19 years. 3 days back we had a discussion among the core members of the trust about supporting members of Kerala in this disaster. After the discussion was made, we decided that we will try to do our best collaborating with our school which was already doing some activities. The first thing that we did was having a short message as our WhatsApp status.

Dear all, we all know the disaster Kerala is facing. We as a Registered NGO in name of Sushaanthi Seva Charitable trust are providing relief materials and essentials to Kerala. If anyone is interested in contributing kindly please reach out to me.

After having the above message as status in our WhatsApp, we started to receive lots of contributions from our friends and family members. The contributions crossed over Rs 50,000 (~750 $) in just one day. In India, it is a huge money. After the money was collected, we started exploring options to dispatch the money in the form of goods to a place where there was a real need. We approached our school and they were also collecting and consolidating goods to be sent to Kerala directly through a truck. We collected a few information about how our contributions will reach Kerala people. A team is actively working in a camp in Palakkad region of Kerala in providing basic amenities and foods in a camp of over 1000 rescued members. The goods that we have contributed will be going directly to that specific camp. With that intention, we started our activity on 18-08-2018.

First day (18-08-2018) of our activity

It was an interesting experience for our team. The first surprise we had was that we never expected we will be able to collect so much amount in a single day. As individuals, we are not a major contributor to this. We are just doing the postman work here collecting the contributions from Good hearted people and dispatching it to Kerala in the form of goods. To purchase items, we went to a wholesale market to purchase items. We met Mr Babu there. He was the floor manager. As soon as we said that we are purchasing goods for sending it to Kerala Relief, the gentlemen gave a great discount and also helped us throughout the purchase. We purchased relief materials for Rs 55,260 the first day. Sharing some of the photos from the first day below.

The below photo is an interesting shot. After purchasing the items we were waiting for a tempo to transport the items we bought. A kid and her mom observed what we were doing and they also wanted to contribute something to the relief. They immediately went inside the market and bought a few items and gave us. The kid was very enthusiastic to help at this young age. She even wanted to lift a few items and keep inside the tempo.

When we completed our purchase it was almost 10 pm and the truck for the day already started to Kerala, we stopped the truck on the road and loaded it with the items we purchased and collected.

The below items were dispatched to Kerala on our first day.

750kg Rice,
100kg moong Dhall,
120kg Toor Dhall,
96 milk bottles,
napkins - 500 packs (Per pack 7 pieces),
Wheat Flour(Atta) - 120kg.
Toothpaste - 50+

Medicines:
Paracetamol- 1500(for fever, headache)
Chestoncold - 1500(for cold)
Vomistop- 500(for vomit)
Lopstop - 500(for diarrhoea)

We were standing on the road to take the photos after loading the items onto the truck. It was quite dark without any proper lighting. That is why pictures are not of great quality. After completing the task successfully we rested with a relief in our mind. But by the time we were reaching home, we had Rs 30,000 further collected.

Second Day (20-08-2018) of our activity

We all had our full energy to start a day fresh doing the same activity again purchasing relief items for Kerala. As it was a Sunday, few more members from the team were able to make it to the market to buy the relief items. Inside the market, we noticed there were few more like-minded people from different NGOs waiting to buy items for Kerala Relief. It was quite interesting to talk to them. We also got an opportunity to introduce them to Mr Babu for them to get some additional discounts. The second day, we purchased items for Rs. 55,650. Below are a few photos and a list of items that we purchased on our second-day activity.

Rice - 750kg
Atta- 120kg
Coffee powder - 120 packets
Lungi - 100no.s
Chocomilk - 2080 bottles
Oats Pongal - 240no.s
Soap - 900no.s
Ceralac - 24no.s(2boxes)

The person with a Tag in his neck is Mr Babu who fully involved himself in providing us what we required and that too with a great discount. He was very enthusiastic to be a part of this service.

We then placed all the items in our school (The school that we studied). A truck will be arranged from the school and the relief materials will be directly dispatched to Kerala.

Final Day (21-08-2018) of our activity

The final day of our activity was today. After purchasing items for the past two days, we still had some more money which led us to purchase items continuously for the third day. Today we purchased items for Rs. 53,581. The items purchased were kept in the same place for tomorrow's dispatch. We also went to the school and spent a few hours in packing all the items. The items are now ready to be loaded onto the truck.

The below items were purchased on our third day.

Detergent Soap - 1068 Nos
Napkins - 5 cases (600 Nos)
Chilli powder - 40kg
Coriander powder- 75kg
Phenyl compound
Limegrass compound
Bleaching powder
Cardboard boxes for packing

We all got our service activity inspiration from our school and the teachers who guided us till today. Its been nearly 12 years since I completed my school but I'm still actively involving myself in service activities organized by my school and other like-minded individuals and organizations.

I really feel sad for the people doing the real field work there interacting with people who were affected in the flood. More than sending goods for help, facing the affected people in person will need a different level of mental strength. Just imagine how we would face someone who had more than 100 crores before the flood and now not even a house after the flood. If we ignore money, some people are even struggling to get their daily meals.

These are really dark days for Kerala but hopefully, with all the efforts of the relief team and the government of Kerala, the state should get the beauty and vegitation back.

Helping Blocks - A fundraising initiative by Coindelta

We are all part of the crypto world. We have been doing lots of wonders since crypto fever hit us. Coindelta has provided us with an opportunity to help the people of Kerala by sending some Ether. The main reason why the fundraising is done via blockchain is that it will be possible to raise funds from all over the world. Another advantage is that, as it is a blockchain, anyone can view the transactions through etherscan. The transactions will be transparent to everyone. You can visit the below link to know more details about this initiative and render your contributions.

https://coindelta.com/helping-blocks/

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Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://bala-blog.com/kerala-needs-our-support-and-prayers/

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