Believe it or not!

Jagran\City Plus

B D Narayankar

Feb 27, Aundh (Pune): Can something as worthless as old newspapers be put to use for a good cause? A group of people from a housing society in Aundh decided to do just that when they put raddi to use for education of children.

Last year, residents of Rohan Nilay 1 Society marched door-to-door and collected raddi from residents of high-rise apartment complexes in Aundh area. Thereafter they sold the raddi to the kabadiwallah and the money they raised was Rs 1,12,400! They put it to use by sponsoring the education of two underprivileged children.

The chief architect of this drive, Hema Rodye, adopted Rahul Baviskar, a cleaner in the society and Pratiksha Kamble, daughter of society electrician, after she realized their spark for education. "Pratiksha is studying in second standard and is good at Maths. Rahul is a 12th standard dropout and working as a cleaner in the society. Rahul had to give up studies due to financial constraints. So we decided to sponsor their education by collecting and selling raddi," says Hema.

"Rahul is thrilled to get back to studying. We have enrolled him into a computer class where he is learning data entry," she says.

So, how did it all happen? "The idea struck me one day and when I discussed it with some society members, they agreed to volunteer. Initially, when we put a proposal before the society, they thought raising a lakh out of raddi was a little far-fetched," Hema recalls, "Eventually, everyone pitched in and we achieved the target. Hopefully, we will continue raising funds from raddi collection," she says. "It is difficult to make people donate money but we got a tremendous response and collected over five tonnes of newspapers. Encouraged, we are working out the logistics to maximise the collection, set up professional targets and develop it into a regular fund-raising tool," says Hema.

"Donating money regularly is difficult but you don't feel the pinch while donating raddi. I am happy to be a part of this project because I know how difficult and expensive education can be," says Pooja Nair.
The volunteers who made it happen are Omna Nair, Shelly Rastogi, Mamta Chakr-avarty, Vidya Chaug-ule, Col Gadagkar, Vijay Pardesi, Mr Bangera, Sam Chakr-avarty and Suresh Vaidya.

Residents of Rohan Nilay 1 Society marched door-to-door and collected raddi from residents. Thereafter they sold the raddi to the kabadiwallah and the money they raised was Rs 1,12,400! They put it to use by sponsoring the education of two underprivileged children.