From rescuing stray animals to creating a Maths Lab, the top Social Stories of the week
This week, SocialStory wrote about a group that helped stray animals, and a project that provided relief to those in distress during the pandemic. The Maths Lab built by a schoolteacher in rural Karnataka and the solar tent built by Sonam Wangchuk for soldiers also made news.
Rajkot’s Mital Khetani came to the aid of stray animals, while the COVID Action Collab project provided relief packages to people, who were struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sonam Wangchuk, an innovator and education reformer, was in the news for building a solar-powered military tent for soldiers. In a rural area of Karnataka, award-winning teacher Yakub Koyyur built a Maths Lab at the government school where he teaches students.
They were featured in the top Social Stories of the week:
This good Samaritan from Rajkot has rescued over 5 lakh animals
Mital Khetani
As stray animals struggled to find food during the lockdown, one of the organisations that came to their aid was the Shree Karuna Foundation Trust in Rajkot.
The NGO started by Mital Khetani spent over Rs 1.5 crore during the lockdown to help stray animals. The organisation has been active for 17 years and Khetani has rescued more than five lakh animals during this time.
The award-winning government schoolteacher who built a Maths Lab
Yakub teaching in his 'Maths World'
An award-winning schoolteacher at a village in Dakshin Kannada district has set up a Maths Lab to instill in students a love for numbers.
Yakub S Koyyur, a teacher at a government school in Nada village under Belthangady taluk, has taught more than 4,000 students, developing specialised content for those who need more attention. He has also trained new teachers. The specialised content can be accessed on his personal blog.
While students in urban India have the benefit of edtech classes, their peers in rural areas are often hamstrung by patchy internet connectivity and minimal exposure. This is where motivated teachers like Koyyur can play a vital role.
The solar-powered tent Sonam Wangchuk created to protect Indian Army jawans at sub-zero temperatures
Sonam Wangchuk
Innovator and education reformer Sonam Wangchuk, known for leveraging traditional wisdom to build effective and sustainable technology, has come up with a solar-powered military tent for soldiers in sub-zero temperatures.
The tent can accommodate 10 jawans at a time.
In a video posted on Facebook on Sunday, Wangchuk shows how the tent was built and how it generates power to protect jawans in freezing temperatures.
COVIDActionCollab delivered over 1.7 lakh services
Food distribution as a part of the project
A project funded by a group with a track record of responding to emergencies provided relief and recovery assistance to 10 million people from vulnerable communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The COVIDActionCollab project of the delivered more than 1.7 lakh services in different verticals.
For 26 years since its inception, the Catalyst Group has been responding to emergencies such as the Kerala Floods (2018), Cyclone Gaja (2018), the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), and the Latur earthquake (1993).
The Bengaluru-headquartered group operates five organisations — Catalyst Management Services, Swasti, Vrutti, Fuzhio and GREEN Foundation. Its multiple organisational formats support investments of various kinds, including grant, equity, debt, impact investments, donations.
CII Foundation, ONGC Foundation are working with farmers to fight toxic stubble burning
Stubble burning
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) Foundation has partnered with the Oil and Natural Gas (ONGC) Foundation to stem the highly polluting practice of stubble burning in north India.
As part of the partnership, the two organizations are supposed to carry out a Residue Management Initiative in five villages of Haryana’s Sirsa.
The project was rolled out in October 2019 and will continue till March this year.
Every year, farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, and Rajasthan set fire to the paddy harvest residue in their fields to prepare the soil for sowing the wheat crop. This practice is called stubble burning.
Of the estimated 47 million tonnes of rice straw produced every year in the four states, 80 percent is burnt in the fields.
Various organisations have been working with farmers to find solutions to stubble burning.
Edited by Lena Saha