THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Wednesday will come bearing a good news for 12-year-old Sruthi. She will never have to be buoyed down by any financial constraints to pursue her education. Her educational needs will be met by Solace Mission, an NGO which has been bringing considerable changes in the lives of many children.“We will be announcing it this Wednesday,” said M K Unnikrishna Panicker, one of the founding members of Solace Mission, taking a break from the busy purchase schedule on Tuesday. He was in the midst of purchasing notebooks and other school merchandise, gearing up for the big day when the NGO will present the school kits to needy children, thereby helping them usher in the academic year with elan.
It was in 2013 that Solace Mission started its journey. The seeds were sown when Unnikrishna Panicker’s friend K G Anil Kumar gave him a cheque to be handed over to a needy patient, whose advertisement had come in a media. “On enquiring, I could not locate the person. It was a fake one. Later on, during our conversations we thought about starting a venture which could help needy patients and children,” says Unnikrishna Panicker, retired acting chairman of Permanent Lok Adalat.
And that led to the starting of Solace Mission and over the years the organisation has been involved in a plethora of activities.“We also decided to incorporate children as a major beneficiary. The nation banks on them and nothing should stop them from pursuing their education,” he said. So a group of like-minded individuals joined together to launch the organisation.
Solace Mission presently has more than 50 members and they all pool their money to be used for such charitable deeds. “Earlier we thought of asking the members to keep aside one rupee per day. But that is cumbersome. So the members pay Rs 200 on a monthly basis and Rs 1,000 on a yearly basis. This is channelised for the various activities. It is just akin to buying one cup of tea for one person,” he says.
Pooyam Thirunal Gowri Parvathy Bayi, member of erstwhile Travancore royal family is the chief patron of the NGO. Other members include Vellayani Sreekumar (secretary), retired professor A K Chandrasekharan (vice president), D Suresh Kumar (treasurer), Dr Lalitha Appukuttan (joint secretary) and Colonel S Anand Kumar.
In 2015, with 30 bags, the team started helping children from economically-deprived sections. And over the years the number of children have burgeoned and every other merchandise except textbooks are distributed to the needy children before the start of the academic year. This year too, as many as 275 children from around 50 schools in the city will be presented with the school kits.The children will gather together at the Government High School, Jagathy on Wednesday morning where they will each be given school kits.