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Getting involved with relief work again...




Team Samanvaya got involved with organizing relief material collection as a response to disaster yet again. This time after the disaster in Uttaranchal flash floods and landslide. The major disaster that struck Uttarakhand in the Hindu pilgrim centres of the Himalayas, particularly Kedarnath, Badrinath and Haridwar between the 15th and 18th of July.

On 22nd July, we set up CHENNAI CARES a citizen's initiative on disaster related relief material collection in collaboration with several wonderful people and groups all over the city and state. For us with our earlier experience of BHUJ relief work and TSUNAMI relief work, this was only a reiteration of the fact that in the moments of disaster a careful organization of information and communication does get enough interest from people all over.

In the next two weeks, thanks to free air lifting of the relief materials by Air India, about 7.7 tonnes of material was sent to GOONJ, a voluntary organization based out of Delhi.

It was great to see several young IT professionals from corporate houses join hands with NGOs to provide help for packing relief materials.

On the 7th of July, in bringing down the first phase of the relief work, Sri. T.M.Mukundan, a veteran activist who had campaigned against the big dams in Uttarakhand for over a decade gave a talk on the causes behind the disaster.

"Joy of Giving" has been commodified and made into an annual ritual, in this context, it was good to see so many people participate in the true spirit of parasparam bhavayathah, of inter-being and mutual benefit through sharing in the true Indian spirit as part of the Chennai Cares venture.

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