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    Donate Bicycle Campaign 2010 Report

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    savantk
    The Group for Rural Activities at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay organized a "Donate Bicycle Campaign" in 2010 to collect discarded bicycles from graduating students and distribute them to needy children in rural areas. They collected 39 bicycles and repaired them with donated funds. In November 2010, they distributed the bicycles to students at a school in Wada, Thane district. The event aimed to help children who had to walk long distances to school by providing transportation. It was well-received by students, parents, and community members who saw it as promoting education in the rural area.

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    Donate Bicycle Campaign 2010 Report

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    savantk
    51 views2 pages
    The Group for Rural Activities at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay organized a "Donate Bicycle Campaign" in 2010 to collect discarded bicycles from graduating students and distribute them to needy children in rural areas. They collected 39 bicycles and repaired them with donated funds. In November 2010, they distributed the bicycles to students at a school in Wada, Thane district. The event aimed to help children who had to walk long distances to school by providing transportation. It was well-received by students, parents, and community members who saw it as promoting education in the rural area.

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    The Group for Rural Activities at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay organized a "Donate Bicycle Campaign" in 2010 to collect discarded bicycles from graduating students and distribute them to needy children in rural areas. They collected 39 bicycles and repaired them with donated funds. In November 2010, they distributed the bicycles to students at a school in Wada, Thane district. The event aimed to help children who had to walk long distances to school by providing transportation. It was well-received by students, parents, and community members who saw it as promoting education in the rural area.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    51 views2 pages

    Donate Bicycle Campaign 2010 Report

    Uploaded by

    savantk
    The Group for Rural Activities at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay organized a "Donate Bicycle Campaign" in 2010 to collect discarded bicycles from graduating students and distribute them to needy children in rural areas. They collected 39 bicycles and repaired them with donated funds. In November 2010, they distributed the bicycles to students at a school in Wada, Thane district. The event aimed to help children who had to walk long distances to school by providing transportation. It was well-received by students, parents, and community members who saw it as promoting education in the rural area.

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    Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

    Group for Rural Activities (GRA)


    A brief report on

    Donate Bicycle Campaign 2010

    Background:
    As we know that at the end of each academic year, graduating students discard their bicycles in the campus. In most of the cases they remain obsolete. Children in Rural India have to walk miles for going to school. Having a bicycle can mean the difference between going to school or not. Your bicycle can bring a new sunrise in someones school life. Understanding these facts Group for Rural Activities (GRA), IIT Bombay has taken the initiative to collect these bicycles which will be distributed to the needy children in rural and tribal areas.

    Campaign:
    After initial rounds of discussions among group members we approached Dean (SA) and got a permission to carry out this campaign in the campus. Things started moving when the first appeal was made to all students and staff through events mailing list in May 2010. Response from the student and staff was very encouraging. We allocated GRA volunteers to all hostels and started collecting bicycle donor's data on a spreadsheet. At the end of June 2010 we collected 39 bicycles. Tansa house donated four unclaimed bicycles within their premises. After we got hold of bicycles, it was evident that some of the bicycles needed repairing hence we started collecting funds to repair these bicycles. When we approached IIT Bombay faculty, they appreciated our efforts so far and extended financial support as well. Some students and staff also contributed in the fund. Meanwhile we shifted the bicycles from IIT to Wada, a town in Thane district, in a mini truck. In Wada, we got bicycles repaired at a cycle mart. It took a long while to finalize a schedule to distribute the cycles we had collected during the Autumn 2010. There were many reasons for the delay. One cause for the holdup was that the villagers were busy with their work in the fields. Other reasons were the end-semester examinations in IIT, the Deepavali holidays, etc. Finally, we managed to fix up a time just after the end semester examinations.

    BicycleDistributionProgram:
    On November 27, 2010 bicycle distribution program was organised at Swami Vivekanand High School, Wada. One can call this school as an educational hub of Wada which is associated to junior and graduate senior college. When we reached, we were surprised to see that many children were cleaning up the gardens of the school by trimming and removing the dry leaves. We were told later that on every Saturday children did this regularly. So there was no need for employing a separate gardener and the children also learned to handle and take care of plants. We then inspected the cycles and found that the repairer had done a very good job. All the cycles were in very good condition and were immediately usable. It is good to see that such skilled workers exist in remote parts of our country. The formal function started at around 1 pm. Shri. Kulkarni, Supervisor of Swami Vivekanand High School, beneficiary students and their parents and locals were present for the program. Initially GRA representatives elaborated background and concept of this Donate Bicycle Campaign. After this initial briefing people asked questions about IIT functionary. Then we gave a short introduction to the admission procedures for various programs at IITs. The cycle repairer mentioned during his speech that he took this job as an opportunity to do social service and would be willing to help for the same cause in future. Shri. Kulkarni highlighted the ground situation of tribal students and appreciated the efforts put up by GRA for their upliftment. There was a lot of positivity about education among the parents. One of the parents also took an opportunity to speak optimistically about the activity. He mentioned that educating girls is one of the main concerns in rural areas and thanked GRA for distributing bicycles. If such awareness and social help is promoted then that concern could be eradicated. Immediately after, we distributed sweets among the children and others who had gathered there. Then we started distributing the cycles. Some of the cycles were given directly to the children and some to the parents (whose children had not come). The most of students to whom the bicycles were distributed were from 5th to 9th standard. Some of the cycles were loaded into a tempo to be sent to remote tribal areas like Mokhada, Khodala, Jawhar, Vikramgad.

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