My mother was frantic trying to figure out how to wire money for the bihar flood victims. So this post is dedicated to her, and to those who badly want to do something, who cant stand watching the horror show on T.V.
Mum's concerns were two fold : she wanted to make sure the money got into the right hands, and she wanted to send it asap, by wire transfer.
I called a close freind who is organising a collection of bare nessesities process in Ahmedabad, and she recomended calling Goonj. Being a big NGO, these people were too busy to give us details of wire transfer, etc.
So we called up friends and then friends of friends and found these people who are not an NGO, but are a motivated group of citizens going personally to Bihar with goods they have collected. They are Javed and Mona, res number 06122522081, and cell no., 09835486721. Another contact is Rajiv Ranjan on +919431442239.
Javed bhai is working from Patna itself. He is working with a group of people collecting dry food items. The women, housewives, are busy packing the food. Their children, after school are helping too. Their target is to pack 10,000 kg food, 2,000 kg clothes, including sanitary napkins, etc. The plan is to load the trucks on 7th night, from Patna to Araria to Raniganj. A well known social worker, Medha Patkar, is coming to meet them today.
Money can be transfered into the acount of Rajiv Ranjan, HDFC Bank, Patna, Account no 1861530001952. His email address is 27.rajiv@gmail.com.
I am copying Rajiv's email contents:
Hi freinds,
this is Rajiv talking to you for channelising relief materials for flood victims of north Bihar. I will not talk much about the calamity as you can gather informations through various sources. The major concern is proper relief materials at proper place.What is happening here that in the absence of proper infrastructure everything is going haywire.To fill this gap we the citizens of S.K. NAGAR,PATNA are trying to bridge the gap.in our own small way. Our one team of ten persons are camping at raniganj block H Qof Araria dist one of the worst hit places.We are giving all possible support from here. This way we have tried to establish an integrated forward backward linkage to do the things effectively.
Believe me this type of consolidated initiative by cititizens is considerd first and unique in its own way Ms Medha patkar had visited our place at raniganj and was full of praise. Hindustan -A hindi daily news paper having maximum circulation in Bihar in its patna edition of 5-9-08 on page no 4 has given a very good coverage of our effort. Now i request you all to be with us in this trying time.
Apart from these group, there are many more who are working on this.
http://biharfloods/ now lists more than 60 organisations in different parts of the world which are involved with helping in relief and rehabilitation operations for the floods in Bihar.
Contact them to offer your services, materials, funds, etc. Also see the Disaster Management section in http://socialcauses/ And this is a link to New York Times on Bihar flood.
The above pic shows railway tracks submerged in the waters of kosi river. I wonder how the map will look now, if we are to draw it afresh. The parallel lines of the river have gone crazy.
