Students in Alappuzha, Kerala have embarked on an ambitious mission to eradicate absolute poverty in the coastal region.
Under the initiative titled ‘Children for Alleppey’, starting February 6, a group of 100 students will each adopt a struggling family in Alappuzha and donate items, including food, to them each month.
The idea, also aimed at teaching the children lessons about sharing and community service, was floated by Alappuzha district collector VR Krishna Teja.
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The district administration has identified 3,613 economically disadvantaged families and decided to connect them with both government and private schools.
“Through this program, Alappuzha becomes the first district in the country to lift the extremely poor families. In other words, there will be no more extreme poverty in Alappuzha from February 6,” Teja told PTI.
The identity of the beneficiary families will be kept confidential by the district administration.
Expanding on the initiative, Teja said that with the support of the district panchayat, MLAs and district ministers, every first Monday of the month will be celebrated as ‘community service day’ in schools.
”On the first Monday, we encourage the children to bring food or other items that can be used. Such items are collected in a box. Students can bring legumes, or soap or toothpaste or atta or any other useful item except rice and cash. If a school with 300 students adopts three extremely poor families, the collected items are separated and given to them.” The initiative has received an overwhelming response from schools in the district.
“Even some schools have decided to adopt one family for every 50 students. We want students to learn how much fun it is to share, even if it’s just something small,” said Teja.
The district collector noted that rice was not needed as it is given to the needy through the public distribution system.
”Even if the item is small, it should be given in kind and not in cash. It’s okay if some students can’t contribute. In each school we have appointed a teacher as a community service coordinator and a student as a community service leader. Everything will be coordinated through community service clubs,” the collector said.
He praised students and their parents as ‘heroes’ of this initiative.
“It’s a collective effort. All credits go to the students and their parents. Society itself has come forward to participate in it. Such initiatives will only take place in Kerala where the entire society is forward thinking. They come forward. One school has already informed us that they are willing to provide medicines to the extremely poor family they adopted…’, Teja said.
In line with the vision of the left-wing government, steps are being taken to eradicate extreme poverty.
“When the second left-wing government came to power, an important decision taken at the first cabinet meeting chaired by the prime minister was to eradicate extreme poverty in the state,” he recalled.
The panchayats are also preparing micro plans to eliminate poverty from the state.
In the 2023-2024 budget presented in the State Assembly on Friday, Finance Minister KN Balagopal has said that the state government has initiated the extreme poverty identification process to eradicate poverty in the state within five years.
As a first step, 64,006 extremely poor families were identified based on four factors, namely food, health, income and shelter; and guidelines have been issued for the scheme, he said.
The government intends to implement the program with the assistance of the Kudumbashree mission and under the supervision of local self-government institutions, in addition to establishing a household micro-level plan to release the above-mentioned families and individuals from absolute poverty within the next five years. poverty.
An amount of Rs 50 crore has also been earmarked as a gap fund for local self-government institutions that do not have sufficient resources in relation to the number of beneficiaries.
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and was published from a syndicated news agency feed)