Hunger for Reform - Students in the US

     In hunger, one cannot study
     Hunger to study forgotten
     Dreams become reality
     With a morsel in hand,
     Dreams become reality,
     But not on a hungry stomach

I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.

    Miles away in the US, students study each day. We battle cold and we battle stress.We battle loneliness. And we battle weaknesses. We drink. We smoke. We adjust. We struggle. We adapt. But one thing we do which most of us do : we eat outside.
   Eating outside is something which becomes a habit. Eating outside is what becomes the norm. Miles away from the family. We feed ourselves. With that we can try out best at helping the children in India. A lot of organizations like Akshya Patra organize mid day meals for children who want to study but hunger is a big obstacle.
   Organizations like Akshaya Patra can connect to students abroad. Students abroad, like me, live under a sense of fear that they might not be able to help India. A country that brought us up can summon us for our help at any given time.
   One way would be to keep a Paypal account where students can donate. We can keep a system where students would donate about a dollar each month. Even with about a hundred students from one university, it would be possible to raise 1200 dollars each year. With around Rs. 750 needed to feed a child each year, this initiative would be excellent, This is with respect to only one University. Imagine the hundreds of Universities, the amount of funding would exceed expectations. Students would not think twice before donating a dollar each month.
   Another way would be to keep a "One dollar per pizza" scheme. Students can donate one dollar for each time they eat outside. This would be a lot since students eat a lot outside. This would be a huge hit in most Universities where students give tips for easily more than 5 dollars every time they order a pizza.
   The US students scheme can be extended to many countries. There is a sizeable student community in Australia and UK. Working professionals can donate even more! With salaries of many thousand dollars every month, 1-5 dollars would not be too difficult.
   However, there needs to be system to connect these students and professionals to direct organizations like Akshaya Patra. This could be done by NGOs situated in the Universities.
   I believe that NRIs will be more than willing to donate and this would a great source of donations.

  Miles away from home,
  We eat but for ourselves.
  Dreams to help our fellow Indians,
  We all wish,
  We all try

  - ed lithium

Blogadda and their awesome initiative

I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.

Hunger for reform - Relative Value of Re.1

     

•      I am going to #BlogToFeedAChild with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.

     Children should be hungry for education and not hungry.

     For us, who get three meals a day and enough water to drink, it is almost impossible to fathom how it feels to be hungry. Even hours of hunger wear us down. It affects our work, it affects our lives and it affects our thoughts. And it is not just a morbid writer's imagination that little children have to suffer from classroom hunger. It is an unfortunate fact. 

     Choosing between hunger and education should not be a decision which a child in a country like India needs to make. Education drives a nation ahead.

     We as Indians can step in and do out bit to help them reach a point where they do NOT have to make a choice, a place where they can focus on education and grow up to be incredible Indians.

     One really simple way to go about doing this is to donate one rupee each day for this cause. The cost of feeding a child for a year comes to around Rupees 750. For every mobile refill we do, lets keep aside one rupee for this cause.

     We can take this a stage ahead. How about every time during a festival, we buy a cracker, we keep aside a rupee. No doubt that every rupee is valuable for everyone. But the relative value of that one rupee is different for different people. In most homes we see one rupee coins lying here and there. Lets collect every coin we see and set it aside for this cause.

    And we can even go a step further. Lets learn to be good citizens. If we have a problem of drinking, make sure to keep 1 rupee aside for each drink we take. If we smoke, for every cigarette, keep aside a rupee. Every time we eat junk food, we keep aside a rupee. Every time we buy a costly dress, we do the same. Within one year, it is not a difficult target to reach - Rs. 750.

   And it will not be easy or everyone. But donation is not an easy thing to do. It is never meant to be easy. IF we have extra money, it becomes our duty to help others. On the other hand, it takes a lot of courage and dedication to help out others when we need it ourselves.

   Learning the relative value of Re.1 be the difference between a developed India and a developing India.

ed lithium