Journalist's Journal - # 5

It needs a magnanimous heart to take steps to alleviate the heart aches and the innumerable pains borne by the society around us. Only a selfless person who is sensitive to the needs of others can undertake any charitable activity.

The measures undertaken in this area by the hope house Vellore are explicitly seen in their children's home. In the multi-pronged approach that they have adopted, the other distinct features are- a community outreach project and higher education assistance. Both these projects have been systematically designed and executed dilligently. They pick up families of the low income level, HIV positive patients or physically challenged ones. 

The adopted families are given a card using which they can buy a monthly provision worth rupees 500 from the Harish foodzone, Vellore. On the 5th of every month, the beneficiaries can avail the monthly supply of food and other necessary items. For such card holders it is mandatory that they have to open a post office RD account for rupees 100 maintaining it on a regular basis.  After a careful scrutiny of this RD passbook, their ration card, or the hospital card for the receipt of their regular HIV medicine (HIV positive patients alone) - the monthly supply is permitted. There are 30 families from the presents of karigiri and Katpadi who have been enrolled under this scheme. The executive director with his staff, who works in tandem with this system, finds it feasible to administer it. 

For the higher education assistance, students hailing from academically impoverished families aspiring for higher education are chosen. Their area of study should be restricted to- health education, ITI or polytechnique courses. Their educational expenses are completely taken over. In case of failure in academics at any stage of their study, they will be rendered ineligible to avail this monitory assistance further. So far, there are 10 students who are recipients of this assistance. 

These projects go a long way to reach the unreached. There is a sound future plan of furthering this higher education assistance, establishing a corpus with rupees 1 Crore deposited in a bank- the interest of which can be drawn to incorporate more students in the scheme. With the dedicated efforts of the managing body and the donations offered by generous souls, these schemes uplift the marginalized and the under privileged.