Social media aids NGO to reach out to thousands of children

A group of night college friends started ‘Parijat’ (a registered organisation under Bombay Public Trust Act 1950) to extend their support to underprivileged and tribal kids attending Zilla Parishad schools. In less than four years donations started pouring in. Parijat received donations from 400 donors from across the world by simply using a creative approach and using the power of social media.

“We used social media and creative material to reach to our donors. We realised that there are people who wish to donate. Through social media, we reached out to them,” revealed Parijat’s cofounder Gurudas Bate.

Most of the founding members— Swapnil Pathre, Gurudas Bate, Rohan Dhalwalkar, Vishal Gole and Shrishant Parkar—met at a night college in Parel, while Vinod Gaikar, is an actor. “It was during our graduation, that we decided to start Parijat.”

The organisation has a team of 30-core members and some of them belong to the advertising field which helped them to communicate strong messages to the donors, he added.

“This year alone we provided school kits to 3,500 students who might have dropped out of school,” he added.

This year, this non-profit organisation reached out to students across nine districts and 43 schools.

The non-profit supports only primary school kids by providing them with umbrellas, raincoats, shoes and bags or even the entire school kits.

“Most of our donors not only contribute money but they make it a point to come and visit the places we work in.”

This Lalbaug-based NGO has worked with needy students from Shahapur, Thane, Kalyan, Badlapur, Vasind, Pen, Panvel, Revas, Alibagh, Ambernath, Mahad, Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Solapur, Nasik, Igatpuri, Ambernath, Pune etc.

“We do not have volunteers/representatives in other districts of Maharashtra so cannot help kids there. We follow a strict policy— without evaluation by our representative we don’t offer support. This is to avoid discrepancy,” Bate added.

Parijat is also supporting two schools to develop art labs in Vasind. This is part of their initiative to support schools that have teachers that follow a different approach while teaching their students.