KOCHI: When his own people suffered the aftermath of the flood, he couldn’t sit back and relax. When flying down to the homeland was not an option, Arun Abraham, an alumnus of Ernakulam Law College, now an expatriate, decided to team up with his friends and crowdfund to distribute water purifiers; a most-wanted product in the flood-affected areas.
Though relief materials like food poured in, Arun wanted to do something more. Like the way he put it, he and his team gave more importance to long-term plans than short-term solutions. “We wanted to do something concrete which actually benefits in a long term. We contacted the expatriate alumni through an online campaign from four continents and join our movement.
For the flood-affected community, the biggest problem will be drinking water. Considering the suggestions from my team of volunteers back in Kochi, we decided to tackle the problem that is going to be severe in post-flood days and thus born The Clean Kerala Water Project” says Arun.
As per the suggestions from his friend Swapna Patronis, the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) alumni who run the NGO “Society for Social Vision”, Arun and his team identified Varappuzha, Alangad, and Paravoor as their focus area of the project. “There were many celestial efforts from expatriates to help their fellow Malayalis, but the lack of knowledge about the reality makes their efforts futile. We opted 100 mo
st-affected families to implement the project and ensure they are healthy in condition. Swapna gave us the valuable information from the ground. If she wasn’t there, this endeavour would have been a failure,” he adds.
Elaborating the parameters used to select the most affected families from the area, Swapna Patronis said, “We focused one-story houses of financially backward families with no access to clean and safe drinking water. We will complete the distribution of the filtering systems within the next two weeks.”
Thomas Thumpassery, the representative for Sawyer Filters, an international firm which produces filtering equipment promised the team to deliver their filtration system at a special discounted price.
“After knowing about this noble initiative, I offered high-end expensive models of water purifiers at a nominal rate. A person hailing from Punalur, I could understand the despair of the flood victims. As of now, we are focusing on the pilot project,” says Thomas, who runs the product franchise, T-agro.
As a second phase of the endeavour, the team plans to reach out to 1,000 families including several schools which are completely damaged in the flood. “Many individuals are voluntarily reaching out to us for the next phase. Once we complete the pilot project, we will reach out to the identified victims,” concludes Arun.