Thiruvananthapuram: Social media relief team by youngsters

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A group of young people here has formed a ‘Disaster Relief Team’ which has been tracking and addressing the requests for essential commodities in relief camps in flood-affected areas across the state. The volunteers coordinate with relief camps that have excess supply and redistribute piled up commodities among camps having shortage of supply.

The team members monitor requests in their WhatsApp group which is later posted in other social media platforms, including Facebook. The response for these requests is tracked to collect the commodities offered. These are packed in various collection points and sent to the respective relief camps. The group was formed by Unnikrishnan Parackal, Siyad, Premsankar and P.K. Prijith, all based at Venjara-moodu in Thiruvananthapuram.

“We collect commodities, including foodgrain, clothes, ready-to-eat food packets, blankets, drinking water and cleaning agents on a daily basis. These are packed at various centres in the district and transported to the destination,” Unnikrishnan, who is also a teacher, told DC. “If there is excess commodity in any of the camps, we redistribute it to other camps according to the requireme-nts. Such piled-up goods were redistributed from various relief camps, including those at Kadapra and Kayamkulam,” he ad-ded.

Currently, there are some 250 active members in the group that started functioning on August 15. Goods worth Rs 20 lakh have been distributed in areas, including Ranni, Aranmula, Arattupuzha, Alappuzha, Chengannur, Thiruvalla, Aluva, Kuttanad and Idukki.

‘Disaster Relief Team’ is also assisted by ‘Life,’ an organisation having doctors and medical students as members, which conduct medical camps in the flood-affected areas. The team is also into cleaning the houses.