Meet the engineer who is walking 17,000 km to rid India of child begging

From traffic signals to railway stations, child beggars in our country are a ubiquitous sight. While we cringe and complain, a mechanical engineer from Delhi is doing something about it. Meet Ashish Sharma, who is walking 17,000 km to spread awareness about child begging. The campaign, OneGoOneImpact, was flagged off in August this year.

Ashish believes it is imperative that we, as a society, fight this menace. The young techie quit his comfortable job and started campaigning for the cause, says a LinkedIn post. Throughout this campaign, he will cover 29 states, seven union territories, and 4,900 villages. Most of his days begin and end with speaking to multiple people from schools and colleges. He believes in building a strong network of individuals who will proactively speak about the issue. Talking about his inspiration, to The Logical Indian, he said,

I have been visiting old-age homes since class six. But soon I realised that the root cause of our problems lies with the children in our society. If the children are not happy, how will we ensure better lives for the senior citizens? There are so many child beggars on the streets, nobody does anything for them. I knew I had to do something for them. But how many lives can I touch individually — 50 or even 100? My aim is to mobilise the entire youth to achieve a larger goal.

When asked how this campaign is going to change mindsets, he said,

The change I am aiming for is at a psychological level. Once people get to know that someone is walking 17,000 km for a cause like child beggars and going through immense pain, they’ll also be touched at some level. This will help in getting them mobilised.

Ashish plans to hold a nationwide event, 'Unmukt India', on June 14, 2018, to unite 500 crore voices pledging for the cause and to propagate the benefits of education.

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