KOCHI: Seven years ago two enthusiastic and altruistic engineers, Ashith Raju and Maneesh Rawat started a charitable society, naming it SEF (Student Empowerment Foundation) with the vision to help the poor, the deprived and neglected sections of the society.
Their experience of visiting the underprivileged and tribal people in Tuni ( Andhra Pradhesh) who have been exploited sexually, mentally and physically by the authorities and police acted as a catalyst in forming this charitable society. Their close-knit group of friends, Noufal, Vishnu, Manika, Azhagu Raja and Gokul PC were also instrumental in founding and fleshing out the concept of SEF and the finding team around which friends, and the community came together to make the youngster’s dream a huge success. They have been giving away all their salary for charity and are doing part time works to meet their needs.
The first generation of SEF started with supplying food packets on streets but after realising that food can alleviate only hunger they decided to educate them which would make them own all. For that, they recruited a team to meet the students, interact with them and answer their queries. From then, SEF grew exponentially. By 2016 SEF was registered as a Trust in the district of Kottayam with its regional head office at vaikkom. The growth of SEF was instantaneous. Currently SEF is functioning with a participation of 1,000 above members and four branches across the state.
As part of their endeavours to build a healthy young generation, SEF has initiated four core programmes. SEF cares to help differently abled and unprivileged students and those with serious health issues, SEF Mitra to provide scholarship for eligible students and to conduct talent search examinations and empowering events, SEF Guru to conduct motivational, stress relief and counselling classes for them. LEAD( Lets Encourage and Dare) is yet another initiative taken by SEF with the aim to improve public speaking skills of students in the state.
Under the fouth core programe SEF Camp, they organise camps for general check ups, blood donation and organ donation. “ Blood donation is the most significant contribution that a person can make towards the society. Its not harmful for an adult person to donate blood. The body of the donor can regenerate blood within few days. Blood donation is our major concern as donated blood is life saving for individuals who need it. SEF is successfully conducting blood donation campaigns with Indian Medical Association (IMA) all over India,” says Ashith, director SEF.
SEF has also initiated a de- addiction programme with the NDPS special force (Aroor), Kerala police and Kerala sports council to control drug usage among students. “ Addiction seem to have affected almost all classes and sections of the society, it has no age barriers either. Recent studies have revealed that after Punjab and Pune our very own Kochi is the largest drug abuse hub of the country. Through our de-addiction programme we help the patients to understand and conquer their addiction,” Ashith adds.