How Bengalureans lit up Kerala homes and lives
By Iff ath Fathima & Reya Mehrotra
The waters may have receded and relief is pouring in from many parts of the country to flood-hitKerala . Karnataka , too, is batting for God’s Own Country, with activists and good Samaritans chipping in with multiple activities Uniservice, a facility management company in Whitefield, is on a mission to light up 500 houses in the flood-affected regions — from Thrissur to Aluva .
A team of 20 technicians, including electricians and plumbers, reached Thrissur on Wednesday. The team restored power in 300 houses in areas like Ramavarmapuram and Mudhuvara. CEO of Uniservice, MurugarajSwaminathan , said, “The moment we heard about floods in Kerala, we wanted to do something. We needed lot of materials to restore electricity in houses which were plunged in darkness. When the Whitefield Rising Team posted it on Facebook, we have got a lot of support and we used materials from our company worth Rs 2 lakh.
Our main motto was to provide help to the poor. Though the water rose up to 4 feet high in many places, we lit up 300 houses.”
Elsewhere, Bengalureans went out of the way to support Kerala in its moment of crisis. Nikhil Narayanan, a resident of GM Palya, has been making a difference through Twitter. Last week, when people from different parts of the world tried to contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister’s Disaster Fund, many payments failed. The website too crashed at some point. There were issues with payment gateways as well. Witnessing the bottleneck, Nikhil, along with other techies, tweeted to the Chief Minister’s Office requesting to take steps for smooth (international) payments. The government took notice and the problem was fixed within 12 hours. On August 12, Nikhil tagged an online shopping website to kick-start a relief campaign for the flood victims. Spotting his tweet, others followed and tagged major brands. The response was overwhelming with multiple brands joining the bandwagon. Says Nikhil, “Kerala needs a lot of money to get back to normalcy. Citizens can’t rely on the government alone. It has to be a collective effort. Efforts of people like Tony Sebastian, Naveen Francis and Vipin Nair were invaluable.”
Meanwhile, members of Innovative Petal-Doddanekundi Rising collected 1.2 tonne of relief materials in a day. Lijo Issac, a member of the group, says, “We spread the message through social media and in two says, we gathered 1.2 tonne of material.”
Sandhya Menon, a freelance journalist, raised nearly Rs 9 lakh, besides collecting truckload of essential items for the needy. “The amount will be given to Carcel Foundation which supports tribal children in Wayanad and to Blue Umbrella Foundation. Two trucks of materials have already been sent, including important medicines,” said Sandhya.
The waters may have receded and relief is pouring in from many parts of the country to flood-hit
A team of 20 technicians, including electricians and plumbers, reached Thrissur on Wednesday. The team restored power in 300 houses in areas like Ramavarmapuram and Mudhuvara. CEO of Uniservice, Murugaraj
Our main motto was to provide help to the poor. Though the water rose up to 4 feet high in many places, we lit up 300 houses.”
Elsewhere, Bengalureans went out of the way to support Kerala in its moment of crisis. Nikhil Narayanan, a resident of GM Palya, has been making a difference through Twitter. Last week, when people from different parts of the world tried to contribute to the Kerala Chief Minister’s Disaster Fund, many payments failed. The website too crashed at some point. There were issues with payment gateways as well. Witnessing the bottleneck, Nikhil, along with other techies, tweeted to the Chief Minister’s Office requesting to take steps for smooth (international) payments. The government took notice and the problem was fixed within 12 hours. On August 12, Nikhil tagged an online shopping website to kick-start a relief campaign for the flood victims. Spotting his tweet, others followed and tagged major brands. The response was overwhelming with multiple brands joining the bandwagon. Says Nikhil, “Kerala needs a lot of money to get back to normalcy. Citizens can’t rely on the government alone. It has to be a collective effort. Efforts of people like Tony Sebastian, Naveen Francis and Vipin Nair were invaluable.”
Meanwhile, members of Innovative Petal-Doddanekundi Rising collected 1.2 tonne of relief materials in a day. Lijo Issac, a member of the group, says, “We spread the message through social media and in two says, we gathered 1.2 tonne of material.”
Sandhya Menon, a freelance journalist, raised nearly Rs 9 lakh, besides collecting truckload of essential items for the needy. “The amount will be given to Carcel Foundation which supports tribal children in Wayanad and to Blue Umbrella Foundation. Two trucks of materials have already been sent, including important medicines,” said Sandhya.
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