Students at the American School of Bombay are putting in hundreds of volunteer-hours to raise funds for victims of the Kosi flood. In October last year when Matthew Duffy,physical education teacher with the American School of Bombay (ASB) at Bandra Kurla Complex,volunteered in the flood affected regions of Bihar,he had a chance encounter with a local who had been perched on a tree for over a week. He had lost his voice,and standing there,unable to comprehend what he was trying to say,I felt helpless. There were many of them,who had lost their wives,children,homes. But somehow I cant forget the image of this man who must have cried for help and eventually lost his voice, recalls Duffy,who adds that this single image became for him a metaphor of the calamity that had struck the state and of the apathy of the government towards rescue and aid. Duffy,along with ASBs science teacher Lisa Alsch and drama teacher Russell Bell then brought the initiative into the classroom,which saw students joining in the fund raising. Twenty students have now formed a core group to generate enough funds to send to the flood-affected. The various fund raising events within the school have seen them collect over 5,000 blankets and clothing weighing 1,400 kg,already shipped to Bihar. Many small events were organized in the school to raise donations with the first drive itself garnering $ 5,000 that was spent on buying basic medicines. A community syllabus soon took shape,with students pitching in with 100 hours of volunteer work towards the fund raising activity and with members of the core group taking turns to visit Bihar so that they could learn from the real visuals to our elementary school environment. Muny Sidhu,a student and member of the ASB fund raising team,left for Bihar in December with clothes collected from his neighbours and friends. To his class,he later recounted how,in relief camps,he had to personally comfort people who had lost their families and had been given government aid of 2 kilograms or rice and Rs 2,500 per family. We slept in the jeep that night and watched all the New Year parties on a small television in a local make-shit restaurant, Sidhu told his classroom,as he described his surreal experience. When I started to distribute the blankets,people started touching my toes and that brought a tear to my eye. The group of three from the core team visited villages,and even made a good effort of distributing blanketsafter they brought an entire shop of blankets for Rs 20,000. While all the students have now put in 100 hours of self-imposed voluntary work,they are also planning to host Embrace India,a cultural fest by the students,to generate a target of $60,000 to be given towards Bihar flood relief. The idea is to reach out to the affected families at a time when NGOs,social activists,media and the government have forgotten them. Through our partner AID India we will reach out to those families and ensure that slowly we start adopting villages and ensure that the basic necessities are fulfilled including a home. For the students who belong to many nationalities,the experience according to Duffy was like adopting a new country.
