COVID 19 Pandemic has led to sad demise of our closed ones, but we still have someone who supports us. What about those students who have lost their parents due to COVID-19 and now have no one to support them ? Can you be their parental support by contributing to this cause ? 

करोनाने हजारो विद्यार्थीचे पालक गमावलेले आहेत.ते उच्चशिक्षण घेतात.त्याची सदया परिस्थीती अंत्यत हलाखीचे आहे.शासनाने परीपञक काढुन यांची जबाबदारी घेतली नाही.

स्टुडंट हेल्पिंग हँड संस्थाच्या वतिने आम्ही पुढाकार घेतला.अशा विद्यार्थीची माहीती गोळा केली.आणखी जमा करणे चालुच आहे. सामाजिक बांधिलकी म्हणुन यांचे पालकत्व स्विकारावे.

तसेच फुल नाही फुलांची पाकळी म्हणुन आपण त्यांना सढळ मदत करावी. नाउमेद होण्याआधी त्यांच्या पंखाना बळ द्यावे.

We "Student Helping Hands" are a registered non profit organization, working to support low-income and marginalised community students in their academic journey. We were able to support 800+ students by providing them with food twice a day for more then one year for students who came from drought areas, apart from this we paid academic fees of 120 students. Also we have been actively campaigning for student's rights. 

As COVID 19 has posed a new challenge before us, many University students have lost both of their parents to the pandemic. 

It was during the first and second COVID wave which have been a great challenge to many of us and we lost our closed ones. This has impacted our life to a great extent.

The bigger challenge is for those students who come from low income group and have lost parents due to COVID-19. 

And so we on behalf of the Students Helping Hand Charity, have started collecting data of students who have lost their parents due to Corona in the state of Maharashtra. 

State Government of Maharashtra announced via official GR (परीपञक राज्यशासन क्र विधी.5020 प्र.क्र.68

सीईटीसेल 7652.) an initiative for students who lost parents due to COVID 19 in which they assured that 

"1) The State Government will take care the academic cost for students who have lost parents due to COVID 19.

2) The state assured it will wave off all other college cost (lab fee, library fee, Gyms Fee, Exam Free, Gathering Free, etc) 

3) State assured that the cost of College Accommodation will be waived off for students who have lost their parents due to COVID 19. 

4) And if any students are not able to make payments of tany outstanding College fee then that student should not be forced and should be given time."

With this regard I filed an RTI (RTI answer -क्रंमाअअ_2022/प्र.क्र.02.वीशि 2), some alarming issues surfaced as a result of this RTI application. In an answer to my RTI by Higher Education Technical Department Maharashtra Government they said "We do not have report of the students who have lost their parents due to COVID 19 pandemic and so we can't give you any new information". 

This means that the Stats  Government has still no count of the students who lost parents due to COVID 19, and due to which not a single student was compensated by government under the scheme.

And so we through our organisation have began gathering data on count of Students who have lost parents due to COVID 19. Around 125 students have signed up to our surveys m and many more are singing up. 

It breaks our heart to see student's mental and financial situation. With no parental support the government has left alone these students. 

We are doing follow up with the state government but till then we have decided to gather a list of such students and provide them with Economic assistance. 

We gave started a fundraiser to receive community contributions to help students with their educational, financial, and fundamental needs.

On an average these student spend less than 5,000-6,000 rupees per month on food, lodging, and instructional materials. Some students work part-time while studying. Many of these students are now in depression due to these situation. 

And so we are reaching out to you, please support this fundraiser and help students to continue their education and make sure that they are not deprived from fundamental necessities at such a critical stage of life.

It is our responsibility to assist students in such situations. Can you lend them a helping hand and show them your love.

We stand committed to support these students to assist them to complete their education. We will continue our work to mentor and support these students. We need your guidance and support.