As the national capital is bracing itself for the coldest winters compared to previous years, a few college students from Kerala have gathered to lend their warm hands to save the unprivileged and homeless people from bearing the brunt of the biting winter. Blanket Challenge, a fundraising challenge on Instagram started by The Nameless Community, an NGO run by a bunch of college students in Kerala is at present doing rounds on social media.
The Blanket Challenge which is both unique for its name and cause, is aimed at collecting funds to buy blankets and donate them to the unprivileged in Delhi and other neighbouring states. Youngsters and students who wholeheartedly accepted the challenge shared its posters through various social media platforms.
First started in 2019, the fundraising challenge garnered sufficient funds to donate 300 blankets during its initial year in states including Haryana, UP, Kashmir etc. And in 2020, the challenge which began on Nov 10th and ended on Nov 28th, successfully managed to raise sufficient funds to donate 1000 plus blankets through its rigorous social media promotions.
The idea of this unique challenge popped up within the NGO after they realized that during December, several people in India die due to the biting cold weather.
Mubarak Mooza, the project coordinator and joint secretary of The Nameless Community said:" It was through my experience while travelling through North India that I got to see the reality of how the unprivileged people who don't own a shelter reside in India during the December month. While discussing their terrible livelihood within the community, the thought on what we could do for them flashed within us. And this further gave us the idea of #blanketchallenge."
"Our criteria on selecting the beneficiaries are primarily prioritised for people residing on the roads without even a plastic sheet as shelter and the families with children and old aged people living at the outskirts in temporary shelters. We manage to make no discrimination based on the religious beliefs and we ensure the beneficiaries are considered beyond their identities of religion, caste, gender etc," he added.
Also Read:See the paintings of students from Northern Gaza Strip
The Nameless Community which collaborated with Taybah Heritage, a Delhi based NGO has two operation teams working in both Delhi and Kerala among which the Delhi operating team is responsible to distribute the blankets. Whereas the Kerala operation team is mainly in charge of collecting money and social media promotion.
"One large blanket can be used by four people. And our next aim is to distribute 500 more blankets," Vishnu, Kerala operation team head and general secretary of The Nameless Community said.