It all began in October 2012, when Lakshmi (name changed), standard VIII student of a private school, started filling her special ‘hundi’ (piggybank). She saved money by not spending excessively during Deepavali. But, Lakshmi had no inkling that her saving for a mere 100 days would bring about a significant change in someone else’s life.
But that is exactly what her savings and those of 4,000-odd other students from nearly 40 schools did to their underprivileged counterparts in other schools, thanks to an initiative of Shanti Ashram, called “Poverty Solutions”.
The first phase of the initiative aimed to involve children and youth in eradicating poverty. It encouraged them to save money in simple handmade hundis. The phase that began on Gandhi Jayanthi and ended on January 30, 2013, saw children save Rs. 1.25 lakh in 1,000 hundis.
To slate the initiative in the period October-January paid off because it was the festival season and children usually received money from elders to buy gifts, clothes, crackers, etc. This gave them an opportunity to save money for Poverty Solutions. Not only did this encourage the children to think of the less fortunate, but it also taught them to splurge less.
The Phase I contribution was used to award scholarships to toppers in SSLC from 26 Government and aided schools; immunise 400-odd children living with HIV; conduct anaemia screening camps and distribute iron supplements to girl children in Government schools.
The Phase II of the initiative was launched on October 2, 2013. According to G. Vijayaragavan, Head, Youth Leadership Programme of the Ashram, the plan was to let college students implement the poverty alleviation solutions chosen by school students. They were to be involved in ensuring that the contributions were utilised under selected verticals. The ground work of Phase II of ‘Poverty Solutions’ began in August 2013, with the actual project set to take off on October 2, with the distribution of 3,000 hundis.
In the meanwhile, the success story of Phase I of ‘Poverty Solutions’ received several requests from like-minded organisations in other parts of India to help them replicate the model. And the pan-India version of ‘India Poverty Solutions’ was launched on October 17, 2013, to be implemented on the same lines in New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and a few parts of Kerala, through partner organisations. This initiative also included plans to find effective solutions to prevent child marriages.
The culmination of Phase II of ‘Poverty Solutions’ saw 19,434 children from 79 institutions saving Rs. 1.64 lakh. Twenty eight toppers in SSLC from 27 Government schools received scholarships.
According to Kezevino Aram, Director of Shanti Ashram, the rest of the amount would be utilised soon for the other programmes. Since the amount saved was higher than that in Phase I, two new programmes were added to the existing ones to include providing sanitation facilities in Government schools and setting up and sustaining food banks in certain institutions.
“More than the additional money, what has triggered us to add new programmes is the increase in volunteer participation from students. It is heartening to see more and more children getting involved and we are all set to roll out Phase III of the initiative in August,” she adds.
If the second year saw the initiative going pan-India, the third year is expected to see it going global.
An international review team from the International Centre for Alleviation of Poverty, Nairobi, Kenya, found the children-led model fit to be replicated world-wide. Besides other factors, what attracted the team most was the motto of the initiative: “By the children, for the children”.
