'Spread the Love' campaign by LSR students to help peers with financial aid after Aishwarya Reddy's suicide

After the tragic impact caused by the suicide of second year student Aishwarya Reddy from Lady Shri Ram (LSR) College, some of the students from LSR has been organizing a fund-raising campaign called' Spread the Love' to help the financially backward students in college.The campaign commenced on November 9.

Khushi Bhasin, a third year History student from the same college took the initiative to start the fundraising without any external help from college authority, Students Union and Aishwarya's family. Along with Khushi, Avayaraj Singh, Shivani Rathuri and 30 other students are also engaging in the campaign to provide their support in fund raising campaign.

Second-year mathematics student from LSR college Aishwarya commits suicide at her home in Ranga Reddy district of Telangana on 2 November. Aishwarya, whose father is a mechanic and mother a tailor, wanted to get a laptop to pursue online classes amid the pandemic. In a suicide note left behind, she wrote: "I don't want to become a burden for family." She said to be ended up her life by financial stress because of not getting INSPIRE scholarship under Ministry of Science and Technology.

Ourdemocracy.in is hosting the online fund raising 'Spread the Love: Relief Fund for students of Delhi's LSR college' till November 23. The campaign aims to collect maximum amount within short time period. It has collected around 2,94,800 rupees from November 9 to till now.

Speaking with Madhyamam Khushi Bhasin, the organizer of Fund raising told that "After the death of Aishwarya we were going through really hard time. We couldn't believe that we lost one of our friends and that is why we wanted to set up a campaign with an intention to help students who are in urgent need of financial assistance and aid. The campaign will aim to collect resources by getting them access to devices such as data packs and internet access, phones, laptops anything that they need to attend the online classes,"

"Lot of people are undergoing financial difficulties during Covid crisis. So, in order to provide them financial help the campaign will be helpful. We are trying to get the support from Students Union right now. This is a private student led fund and don't have access to much data. We are not doing this in collaboration with the collage because we don't want to drag administration in it", said Khushi.

"It's really a bad thing that Ministry had denied scholarship to Aishwarya. What happened was not fair to her. I refused to believe that the government of India did not have enough funds to provide 80,000 rupees to a poor college student when the govt are spending lot of money in education fund. LSR college always assume that everyone has equal access to resources, Wifi facility, money and travelling. The college even assumes that everyone is privileged. That is so heartless, not everyone has this privilege to afford all these expenses".

"They can't stop us from raising money for our friends. We have circulated a form and got responses from students those who need to have financial assistance. We will shortlist the form and will decide how much amount will have to distribute to each student. We hope to get more amount in coming days", she further adds.

Organizers said that by the end of campaign all the details of donors and transactions they have made will be released through LSR's Instagram page. Names of donors and recipients will be transparent. The amount details will sum up in excel sheet for public screening. Along with the campaign the organizers have also distributed a form to know the other problems faced by students in the campus. Depending on the needs of students with lesser income, campaign organizers have planned to provide the money from the raised fund.