Hyderabad: Different people have different motivation to do their part back to the society and for P Prasahha Vikhil, one of the founders of the NGO – Friends Being Helping Hands (FBHH), it was his own poverty-stricken childhood that motivated him towards making a difference.
“My father passed away when I was an infant and my mother is a farmer. When I was studying in a government school, an orphanage picked me up and supported my education till I finished 10th. It was that experience that motivated me to initiate this NGO,” explains Vikhil.
He and his two friends, Md. Nadeem and Ch. Anish started and registered FBHH in 2014 and started off in a simple manner by giving textbooks to underprivileged students. “When I was in high school, though the academic year starts in June, I could only get textbooks by August or so because I had to rely on someone donating them. I decided to help out the children of labourers and other low-income groups by raising funds to donate textbooks to them on time,” says the psychology graduate.
Taking over the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) No Poverty, Zero Hunger and Quality Education, FBHH now does a wide range of activities in Hyderabad, Warangal, Pune and Guntur, with over 3,000 registered volunteers.
“When I was in college, we started off by conducting various educational sessions in slums, including bringing in speakers to educate children on a variety of topics. Additionally, we also started going to government schools and conducting career-guidance sessions for the students,” he adds.
Apart from those, the NGO has also undertaken campaigns towards menstrual hygiene, where they raise funds to buy sanitary pads and distribute them in slum areas, having donated to over 10,000 women in the last couple of years.
Post-pandemic, during the lockdown, the NGO got into action and donated over one lakh grocery kits to migrant workers, homeless people and others, in addition to assisting over 17,000 families of handloom artisans, by providing them with groceries.
Currently, the organisation is sponsoring the education of 60 below-poverty-line students with their scholarship.
“We initiated the FBHHS scholarship wherein we give Rs 5,000 to every recipient and we are on the third cycle of the scholarship. Previously we gave the scholarship to 120 students,” says Vikhil, who is the recipient of Telangana Rashtra Sarwabhoma award, among others.
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