Coronavirus lockdown: Student raises money to help feed the children of daily wage earners

Aryaman Khosla, a Class XII student of The Doon School in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, has raised close to Rs 8.33 lakh through a crowdfunding platform to provide rations and other items to children and their parents associated with Parikrma Humanity Foundation.

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Parikrma provides free education to children from the slums in Bengaluru and also gives them three meals a day. With four schools in the city, the foundation primarily covers 105 slums in and around Jayanagar, Nandini Layout, Koramangala and Sahakarnagar.

With the lockdown in place, these children were unable to attend the schools. Many of these students are also the children of daily wage workers, who are among the worst-affected in the current crisis.

In response, the foundation started sending food and provisions to the children’s families. Aryaman, who has been associated with Parikrma Humanity Foundation, started the 'Provide for Parikrma' initiative and went about raising money to help the foundation buy provisions.

“We have been able to give these families 5 kg rice, 2 kg dal, 2 kg ragi, 1 kg sugar, some vegetables, some spices, 500 ml oil and one soap every week,” says Shukla Bose, founder of Parikrma Humanity Foundation.

In addition to providing ration to the families, worksheets and story books are sent home with the mothers who come to collect the provisions. This is done so that the children’s education is not interrupted and they do not lose the motivation to learn.

The foundation is also looking to provide some employment to the women and is giving them used cloth and sarees from which to stitch cloth bags, for which they are paid money.

In the meanwhile, the work of providing for these families in the slums continues. The money raised by Aryaman is enough to provide over 124,500 meals.

“My campaign has seen donations and support from over 95 people from around India as well as from abroad, and it is because of their generosity that we are able to continue feeding these families,” Aryaman says.

“If it had not been for Parikrma and all the people who have supported them, we would have starved. It is very frightening for us not knowing what is going to happen next but we will always be grateful for all the courage that people took, risking their lives to feed us. They were compassionate enough to think about people like us," says Uma, whose children study in Parikrma School. Uma, a single mother of two daughters, was employed as a maid and has been left without work due to the lockdown.

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