Please find below the post from
http://ourrevolutions.blogspot.com/2009/10/successful-flood-relief-camp.html
As soon as we heard about Floods in Andhra, Baasata and Our Revolutions started discussing on where, how and what to help .
We luckily were able to establish a very good contact in Kurnool, Mr. Ratna Prasad is very good Social Service activist in Kurnool and he did a very good job in past.
We contacted him. One of our friend's father has worked with him closely in identifying a village K.Singavaram near Kothakota which is 35Kms from Kurnool and has 400 families.
The village is on the bank of Tungabadhra river and the damage was more severe than anticipated. The flood has shown no mercy on small farmers and no anger on landlords. It took everything. Everyone lost equally everything.
A bridge between this Village and Kurnool was severely damaged and it took 1 week to restore it. The villagers of K.Singavaram did not receive any help
We contacted the villagers and asked them what assistance did they expect from us to pace up their rehabilitation.
They said that some how they are getting some food grains and requested us to provide them some clothing.
We discussed with the Village head Mr.Chinna Sathyanarayana and others. Since winter has almost approached, we zeroed on some warm clothing. As most of the villagers work from morning to evening on farming and considering the climate condition in Kurnool, we thought Woolen Blankets wouldl help them out. The villagers agreed for it and requested us to help them equally i.e. to bring our help in Units of 400. Kudos to their spirit of Unity. What moved us is that no one was greedy and they wanted help equally.
On fast track we gathered the funds from our Baasata Members, Our Revolutions and Spurthy Foundation(Bangalore) which totally summed up to Rs.49,976/-.
We purchased 400 Woolen Blankets and 400 towels. The quality of Woolen Blankets and Towels are as good as the ones in our home. The purchase was made after a very good research which lead careful selection of Woolen blankets and towels of good quality at cheapest price. We thank the owner of the shop who sold us the clothing for almost zero profit.
We distributed them 1 Woolen Blanket and 1 towel per family by checking their Voter ID or Ration Card to confirm that they belonged to K.Singavaram. Few of the villagers volunteered themselves to identify no members of same family repeated twice. making sure that every family got help and no family got help twice.
Our Revolutions, Spurthy Foundation and Baasata Society have co-operated well, clarified every aspect and saw that the distribution was done effectively. The synchronization of different groups of people was a wonderful lesson in our journey. We could proudly say that every penny donated has very well reached the needy.
Thanks for putting trust in us.
We from Baasata Society would like to thank D.Diwakar(Our Revolutions) , G.Praveen(Spurthy Foundation), Ratna Prasad(Kurnool), Mali (Kavali) and the others who involved in making this event successful.
We are looking forward to help those villagers in another phase. We are out of funds and once we finalize on what to do next we will start raising funds. I request you to point us towards any kind of assistance that the villagers could get.
PS: In this activity every effort was on fast track, it was an overwhelming for all those involved to see things happen at a very fast pace. In every walk of our efforts we felt the spirit of humanity and unity assisting us.
Thanks
The Baasata Team
Hi All,
Thank You all for your responses for the flood relief activity we planned. Initially we planned to conduct the activity on 17th of October. Since many of you could transfer money after 17th, we postponed it to 26th of October based on the availability of the village heads where we decided to help.
As expected the response was overwhelming from many of you. We selected a village called K.Singavaram which is near Kothakota (35Kms from Kurnool). We had a lead from one of our friends in this village who helped us in identifying the correct families and also in helping us to distribute to each one of them correctly.
We discussed on various options but zeroed in on Woolen Blankets and Towels. There were 400 families in the village that required immediate help and we were requested to help all of them. Govt. gave them rice and other house holds items so we decided to distribute woolen blankets & Towels (also because it falls into our budget and more importantly because it was winter) to the 400 Families.
We bought 400 Woolen Blankets & 800 Towels in Kavali and divided them into 400 packets and transported them to K.Singavaram. Mr. Chinna Satyanarayana , helped us in collecting the ration cards of the families well before the distribution started helped us in issuing each pack based on the ration cards he had with him. This way every family got their pack.
Since this was a major event considering the budget, we combined with 2 similar organizations named Baasata (Read here)& Sphurthy who are doing an excellent job among themselves. They played an important role in collecting the money required to complete this Important event.Would like to take his opportunity to specially thank Revendranath from Basata & Praveen GR from Sphurthy.
The most challenging thing during the flood relief activity for any group is during distribution (Many organizations could not distribute to the right people because other village people started looting the vehicles midway). So would like to thank Venkat Babu, Mr. Ratna Prasad & Chinna Satyanarayana (Head of the Village) in helping us take the parcels safely from Kurnool.
A special thank you note to all the people who came forward with old clothes(many of them still new). we were told that many of the villages were not accepting old clothes so we did not take them with us. We have around 60-70 pairs of old clothes right now. We are still collecting them and waiting for a genuine opportunity to distribute them.Kindly let us know in case you find people who are in need of old clothes.
Special Thanks to Revendranath from Basata for organizing the entire event which took a lot of effort.
Donations:
Baasata Society Rs.24,776/-
Our Revolutions + Sphurthy Foundation Rs 25,200/-
Grand Total : Rs.49,976/-
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Expenses :
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400 Woollen Blankets + 400 Towels : Rs.42,352/- (Includes Rs.280/- packing charges)
Transportation : Rs.04,100/- (Includes Rs.100/- for driver(Mahesh))
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Grand Total : Rs.46,425/-
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Remaining Amount with us : Rs. 03,624/-
Photos & Paper Clippings:
Few Photos below, will be adding the remaining photos and paper clipping soon
Mr.Ratna Prasad distributing a Woolen Blanket and a Towel to a Villager
Regards,
Team REVOLUTIONS
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