Love only on February 14. And charity...?

My frequent visits to government schools, communities (slums / jhuggi) and meetings with under-privileged children and families have led me to a new question these days. What to donate, when to donate and how much to donate!

The general idea of donating or doing charity, on the basis of my observation, is that people donate on special days (in remembrance of someone, on their special days or on organisation's special days / mention). They mostly donate eatables (meal, junk food like samosas, wafers etc sweets, chocolates etc), appliances (fan, water cooler or purifier, computer which is rare), clothes (warmers, raincoats, pajamas etc), miscellaneous (stationary, funding education, funding meal, a picnic or a day-trip etc) and of course money!
How much to donate is mostly subjective as it majorly depends on an individual's financial capacity.

Before working with Eklavya, I used to visit orphanages, old-age homes, government or semi-government schools for special children. Whenever I thought of charity, I thought of special meals or sweets etc which I thought was a rarity in their routine life. However, now I realize how wrong I was.

Donating special things to these children or people, to me, is like making a joke of their situation. Children lack basic things, they do not have two square meals a day, they do not have under wears to wear (leave aside sweaters or jackets or warm pajamas in winters etc), they do not have clean water, they do not have band aids or ointments, crape bandage for first aid, they do not have story / poem books, newspaper subscription (people donate notebooks / drawing books, sketch pens, pencils etc more); and these are the things which are not usually donated! And trust me, it is a very heart-wrenching situation when you are covered with thermal wear, jackets, scarf etc on a particular chilling morning with cold breeze and you see children between three to six age group with unfit / short frocks with torn under wear inside. And not everyday can you give your pieces of warmers to children, after all how many can you give - three to four, whatever you are wearing and there is a group of eight to fifteen needy children in front of you.

We, the outside world wait for our lives' special days to donate, eventually making a random day special for these children. Any random day will anyway become special for these children when they get things they need, disregarding if it is a special day of the giver or not. Secondly, every weather needs specific things, like along with sweaters in winters, there is also a need to cover legs so pajamas are important, dry fruits instead of wafers or cakes. In monsoon, umbrellas and rain coats are of course  needed, what is also needed is plastic sandals or shoes instead of canvas shoes, mosquito repellant, mosquito nets, or basic medicines. In summers, earthen pots (mitti ka matka / ghadaa) for cool water, coolers and not just fans, cotton clothes, juicy fruits instead of chocolates or cold drinks or sweets.

In short, my friends, what I am trying to say is we need so many things, basic things, every day of our life. And there is not a special day for need-based things. They are required daily. So any day is a good day to donate / do charity.

We have to internalise the fact that we all are same. Like us, these children / families / communities also need basic things. We just have to observe our daily routine and understand that  these should be available to everyone. And if we have them spare or if we buy additional (in case we can afford to buy more), other people like us, can also have them. We have been hearing from our parents, dry fruits are good in winters, easily digested and give enough warmth to remain fit the entire season. The giver anyway will spend some money to buy eatables, why not buy them a monthly quota of dry fruits to these children!


Think before you discard anything. If you are discarding it just to have a change, or a new one with latest features / design or re-selling to get some fake discount; spread the word if it is still usable. There could be an organisation, genuine one, which is in need of providing essentials to needy children, communities or schools.

So do we wait for 14th Feb to share love, a basic emotion of mankind? Why wait for charity? It for basic requirements, do it today, any day.