It was time to go back to school for Sunitha V. Nair, a techie, last weekend. She was busy writing school notes! Sunitha was among 12 women employees from the IT hub who extended their participation for the campaign ‘Together We Can’, launched by Kozhikode-based NGO, Incubation. The initiative saw thousands of people across Kerala writing notes for students who had lost their notebooks in the flood.
Sunitha and others are members of the women’s wing of Prathidhwani, a forum of techies. “A friend had messaged me about this gesture and I forwarded that to the Prathidhwani members. We received the notes as PDF by last Thursday. We bought new notebooks and was on it from the next day.
The notes were completed and handed over to the Incubation volunteers on Monday (August 27). Those who couldn’t complete the same owing to their tight work schedule have sent them by courier to Kozhikode. We have given 50 handwritten books to the NGO,” says Sunitha.
Joint effort
Her husband, Rakesh R., a businessman, and their son Rithwik R.Nair, who is in class three, also chipped in. “We wrote two copies of Biology entrance notebook, Geography of class nine, Basic Science of class six and Mathematics of class eight. Rithwik draws well and he helped with diagrams in Biology. Most of the notes were meant for students in the Malayalam medium,” Sunitha says.
Bindu Raj, another techie, had her son Abhishek B. Raj, a class five student, for company to finish the notes. They wrote notes of Biology of class nine.
“We made three copies. This was just a small gesture towards a big cause. I know how difficult it is when a student lose his books and so I could relate to those students. I was ready to write more,” says Bindu.
According to Abhilash T.K., a coordinator of Incubation in the district, there has been an overwhelming response for the same. “We had expected some 100 books or so. But we got over 1,400 notebooks, of which 950 of them had notes written by people from different walks of life. Even senior citizens contributed. We had collection centres in Neyyattinkara, Palayam, Pothencode, Attingal and Sreekaryam in Thiruvananthapuram district. In addition, there were individuals who ran similar initiatives and contributed the notebooks to us,” says Abhilash, a teacher at an entrance coaching institute in Thrissur. Incubation had eight volunteers in the district to coordinate the collection of notebooks.
A close encounter with people and places in the city
