School children urge people to pledge organs

Noble cause

When Anna Hazare made a call to the country’s youth two-and-a-half years ago, thousands of youngsters joined the non-violent movement which changed the political landscape of this country. But there were some who, though they did not join the Gandhian activist, were so deeply inspired that they took a plunge in the area of “rebuilding the society”.

One such crusader is 15-year-old Amee Gupta, a Class X student in a Gurgaon school, who did not want to be a part of anti-graft campaign but was geared to help society in a different area. 

Amee started a website “India Can Change” last July with the intent to rope in like-minded people to do their bit for the environment. Among the several social issues he is engaged with, is organ donation.  

“I spoke to my school friends to bring them aboard so that we could create a team. It was quite surprising to know that nearly 80 per cent of them were ready to join hands with me,” Amee said. Till date, more than two dozen students from Delhi Public School, Sector 45, Gurgaon, have joined him in the past six months. 

On Sunday, when Gurgaon residents gathered near Galleria market, Gurgaon to promote the practice of cycling under an initiative of Gurgaon Traffic Police, the India Can Change volunteers went about convincing people to sign a “Donate an Organ” pledge. The team claims to have convinced nearly 102 people to sign the pledge. The donors were given pledge cards issued by a Gurgaon-based hospital. A similar exercise was carried out last month too. 

Some of Avee’s friends and family elders urge him to slow down in his crusade, for the sake of his studies. But he is undeterred. “I know time-management well. The time other students waste in having fun, I utilise in working for the society,” he says.

He is all geared to expand his initiative beyond the Delhi-National Capital Region. “The idea behind starting a website was to woo members from everywhere and not to stay restricted to one particular city. This year, I plan to rope in members from all big cities so that we can run similar activities — convincing people to donate organs — across the country,” he said.

Ananya Singhla, another Class X student in the same school and a member of India Can Change, believes that the work she does is quite unique and is different from the predictable act of educating children or planting trees. “By convincing one person to donate his organs, we manage to save so many lives. Even if half of the people who sign our pledge forms end up actually donating the organs, we would consider this as a victory of sorts,” she tells Metrolife.

The young activists are now geared to also foray into the territory of water conservation. “In my area (Sector 15), I have seen people wasting a lot of groundwater though it is a scarce source. We will work towards conserving the rainwater so that the problem of water shortage can be solved to some extent,” she says.  

Inspired by the anti-graft movement which took the country by storm, the young team of ‘India Can Change’ finds the current times of ‘youth awakening’ quite exciting. “My mom tells me that the political scenario was never like this before when the country’s youth is taking such keen interest in politics. Now the people, it seems, have had enough and they want to bring a change. And so do we,” says Ananya.