Koodorukkam means readying the nest; it is also the name of an initiative to help the flood affected set up homes by providing them household appliances such as mixer-grinders, dosa pans, kadais, iron boxes and similar, necessary items. Created by a group of techies, and announced on Facebook on August 28, ‘Koodorukkam’ has garnered excellent response says Jofin Joseph, one of the people behind the campaign.
“There are so many things that we get, as gifts for instance, that we don’t need or use but we keep them anyway like pans and kadais, or some that we have duplicates of. You may not use them but right now there are many who could use those,” says Jofin who works in Infopark. Koodorukkam works in association with GTech and Nasscom, the volunteer partner is Prathidhwani, a welfare organisation of IT employees.
Rather than as a platform of donation, the team prefers the idea of gifting, which affords both parties involved a sense of happiness. The items will even be gift wrapped, Jofin says. Clothes and food were necessities in the immediate aftermath of the floods, but the items that this campaign focusses on are required in the current phase. As of now they have close to 1500 items committed, from across the State, which means it is the number of items registered (to be given) on the Koodorukkam website. These will be collected around September 22 and the deliveries are scheduled to begin the following week.
The team is in touch with volunteers working on the ground with the rehabilitation effort, “this is an unbiased means of identifying and seeking recommendations for an area or group of houses that would need the materials.” As of now they have identified around 35 households that need the material.
They recently had test-runs in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, on September 11, for the collection of materials in order to see how the system would work and the hitches, if any. “We are going slow for a reason - we want to be transparent and accountable. Each person contributing will be able to know where their ‘gift’ has gone and to whom, these are high value materials. Also residents’ associations or communities in apartment complexes can get together and chip in.”
The team wants to set an example for how relief/rehabilitation can be transparent. The core group comprises eight members, entrepreneurs and techies, besides 30-35 volunteers. Right now the plan is to start have collection centres in each district and scale it up depending on the response. The goal is to keep this a continuous activity, till they collect 10,000 items.
The model for collection, as of now, is hub-based where the items can be dropped off. A team of experts will assess the condition of the items, “we make people contributing commit to the quality of their donations. At the level of collection too, we are planning to tell our volunteers to refuse shabby items.”
Those interested can go to https://koodorukkam.in/ or email koodorukkam@gmail.com