Inspiring students with a helping hand

KOCHI: It is said education should be made accessible and affordable to everyone. But we come across many children who can't even afford basic educational requirements such as books, pen, pencil. With a mission to help school students of poor families, the '#Notebook' campaign was founded two years ago by Sanchari Kollam Unit, an online community of travellers.

They are supporting these poor families by providing the children books, bags, pen, pencil, umbrella and other school supplies as a kit. This is the third year of their initiative which is titled 'Notebook Season 3' with the tagline 'With your child-let them also smile'.

Last year they helped around 200 economically backward children with their initiative. This year, they have planned to supply study materials to school as well as college students. As part of this, they started collection blocks in educational institutions from February itself.

Anish, one of the members of the group, says, “To extend support to more children, we installed these boxes in supermarkets. But it wasn't a success. So we thought of engaging college students so it can reach more people.”

The team has installed collection boxes in different parts of the district where people can donate school supplies. There are around 40 collection points so the public can donate. The team has been continuously working towards creating awareness among people so that they come forward and donate generously.

The collected items will be sorted out by the members to make kits, which will be distributed to students by the end of May. The initiative is managed by the district administrators of the group.

In order to take their initiative further, they will soon be preparing a database of their volunteers who can work both offline and online contribute towards this initiative. The volunteers will be spread all across the state so that the school kit can be distributed to almost all the needy children.