Mangaluru: Two law students, through their online drive, are collecting second-hand phones and laptops and donating it to underprivileged children to help them with their education.
Suchetha Vikram and Aman Rodrigues, law students from Christ (Deemed to be) University, had launched the drive in Bengaluru and Mangaluru. While Suchetha is in charge of the drive in Bengaluru, the pandemic forced Aman to stay back home and launch the campaign in Mangaluru, a week ago.
“This campaign is part of Suraksha Dhama, an NGO that will work on women-centric issues and manual scavenging, to be officially launched soon. We have used the lockdown period to work extensively on this project. When we realised that there is a section especially civic workers and those engaged as domestic helpers struggling for a smartphone so that their children are not left behind in terms of education, we decided to launch this campaign, Aman told TOI.
The team conducted a survey and found that at least 40% of the parents need smartphones in Mangaluru and the parents of nearly 55% of the students in Bengaluru claimed they need a smartphone that will help their kids with online classes. They also built a database of those in need of smartphones and laptops and started looking out for donors.
“We managed to get donors and have already donated four smartphones in Mangaluru. The campaign in Bengaluru is picking up slowly. We have reached out to Residence Welfare Associations in apartments and released flyers on social media. Once the phone is delivered, we will check with them once a month if it is serving the purpose to ensure the students are engaged in academic activities,” said Aman.
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Udupi conducts survey for Vidyagama scheme
For the successful implementation of the Vidyagama scheme, which will have teachers reach out to students at their doorsteps, the education department in Udupi conducted a survey to verify the number of students without access to mobile network. “While the data is being compiled, we estimate 10% of the students to not have access to internet especially in rural areas of Karkala and Kundapura,” said DDPI Sheshashayana Karinja.