Bake sales, concerts and good ol’ fashioned face-to-face meets are being used by school students to raise funds for the animal shelter and NGO Friendicoes, which is facing closure.
Friendicoes-SECA (Society for Eradication of Cruelty to Animals) put out a distress signal in the form of a Facebook post on August 13 saying that lack of funds may force it to shut down after 36 years. The organisation runs a shelter-cum-clinic in Defence Colony, a sanctuary in Gurgaon, and two animal birth control centres in East and West Delhi.
The organisation was started as a ‘kindness club’ by school students in 1979. Today, another group of students are trying to raise funds to keep it alive as bills mount.
Seventeen-year-old Diva Sharma, a class XII student of GD Goenka Public School, launched Project Petsafe on August 27 to save Friendicoes from shutting.
“I worked with Friendicoes last summer as part of a research project. So, when I read the Facebook post I had to jump in. The response from students was phenomenal. We collected Rs.1 lakh in three days,” said Diva.
Students of seven schools contributed to Project Petsafe’s fundraising drive, which was promoted through social media and WhatsApp. Since then, Diva said another Rs.60,000 has been donated, and will be handed over to Friendicoes on Saturday.
The students, though sincere, have had to put their efforts on hold as they prepare for midterm examinations.
“After the exams, we are organising concerts in October. The ticket sales will go towards Friendicoes,” said Diva.
Another Class XII student, Ahuti Joshi Goyal of The Shri Ram School, is organising a bake sale on October 9, again after the exams. Frienidicoes, in the meantime, has set up an online crowd funding appeal on bitgiving.com . As of Friday evening, a total of Rs.44.42 lakh had been collected from 1,568 donors. The outpouring of support since the page went online has been such that the target has been revised to Rs.60 lakh from the initial Rs.20 lakh goal.
