From bridging digital divide to feeding the hungry: here are the snippets from this week's SocialStories
This week in SocialStory, we saw the stories of NGOs and individual people who have gone out of their way to help the needy with basic essentials.
People have found ways to look out for one another in times of need. While corporate man Nilay Agarwal has been helping serve food for the poor, Aahwahan Foundation is helping them learn online by lending laptops for free.
Meanwhile, Indore based NGO
is providing those in need with the essentials including clothes, foods, books, and toys. Read these stories and more from this week's SocialStories.Focused on hunger and education, this 29-year-old professional is working to uplift slums
Nilay Agarwal, an ontologist by profession, always wanted to do something impactful. The 29-year-old wanted to do something for society outside of his regular eight-hour job. Hailing from a modest background, he worked to be successful in his career before starting an NGO. However, one event propelled him into action.
A friend of his, who was about to have her wedding in a few days, passed away in a car accident. “We were all happy and preparing for her wedding. However, her passing away reminded me that life is indeed concise, and we must do what we want without waiting — we might not get a second chance,” Nilay tells SocialStory.
After this incident, in 2019, he decided to start his foundation
in Lucknow– named after her deceased friend.This Indore-based platform helps you donate clothes, food, and other essentials, and delivers them to those in need
Indore-based NGO Daanpatra has come forward to take care of pre-owned things in a useful and sustainable way.
Started in 2018 by siblings Yash Gupta and Akansha Gupta, Daanpatra is an online platform that collects donations of all sorts from clothes, toys, books, shoes, utensils, electronic items to furniture and other items. It collects every form of donation, except cash from people's doorstep, and ensures these reach the people in need.
According to Yash, Daanpatra, which offers this service for free, has so far helped more than 11.5 lakh needy families, more than 70,000 Indore residents have joined this platform, and over 5,000 volunteers are connected to this platform.
How young people can help tackle climate change across sectors
As the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (CoP26) – the 2021 United Nations climate change conference – wrapped up recently, this is an apt time to reflect on what’s next for tackling climate change. The goals of COP26 have been cross-cutting, clubbed into four broad areas:
- Secure global net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius
- Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats
- Mobilise finance to deliver on the first two goals
- Work together to tackle the climate crisis through collaboration between governments, businesses and civil society
While these are lofty goals that will help to hold various stakeholders accountable, it will be interesting to see how these crystallise into specific actions. To catalyse collaborations, it is important to keep emphasising that climate change doesn’t happen in a vacuum; it is both impacted by and has an impact on various sectors such as health, agriculture, and education.
How Aahwahan Foundation’s 'Laptop Bank' is fulfilling the online education needs of underprivileged students
Ever since the pandemic outbreak, education has seen a paradigm shift. From online learning to other digital educational programmes, children are now dependent on technology as a medium for education. But, this has not been easy for students from disadvantaged communities.
Understanding this burgeoning problem and realising the significance of online learning and technological advancement, Bengaluru-based NGO
was quick to take action and come to the rescue of the needy.The foundation’s campaign, “Laptop Bank”, a move aimed towards enabling education, is benefiting 3031 students in metros including Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, and Noida, and has so far distributed 433 laptops.