Kerala Floods Relief Appeal; Charity widens campaign to all communities in U.K, receives overwhelming support from NHS trusts, community organisations and individuals…
The ‘Kerala Floods Relief Appeal’ campaign has gathered further momentum with many institutions and voluntary organizations such as NHS trusts and community associations across U.K have come forward to support and donate through British Malayali Charity Foundation. In the meantime, the BMCF trust has decided to widen its appeal through Malayali community members’ (Keralites) workplaces by encouraging them to wear ‘Save Kerala’ badges and sticking posters. The badges/stickers, made to reach the message of appeal far and wide in the U.K among all other communities, will be ready to distribute shortly through its trustees and advisory committee members. The NHS trusts/hospitals in Norwich and Coventry have expressed their support towards the campaign along with community organisations such as Coventry Kerala School,
Friends Sporting Club, Manchester, Malayali Association in Sutton & Surrey (MASS), Devon Malayali Association along with United Scotland Malyali Association (USMA), who had already pledged their support as soon as the appeal begun. Individuals such as Sonsy Sam from Basingstoke have also initiated in setting up fundraising page to support the appeal. The trust has urged to the community and well wishers to set up fundraising page selecting BMCF as sponsoring charity. As decided earlier in the trust, it has reassured again that the raised fund will be handed over to the Kerala Chief Minister’s Distress Relief Fund only. The donation will get enhanced to another 25% if eligible through fundraising pages such as virginmoneygiving.
Torrential rains, overflowing rivers and a series of landslides have resulted in the death of hundreds in the state of Kerala, South India since August 9 as the state was reeling under one of the worst floods in the history. Around a million people displaced and shifted to temporary relief camps… Many of those who died were crushed under debris caused by landslides and subsequent damages including the collapse of houses . . The people were evacuated from their homes as around 40000 houses were destroyed beyond repair and became not fit for human habitation due to the damages caused by the flooding. The overall losses are still unaccounted which is estimated to be around £ 5 billion, as unconfirmed sources claimed. The central govt had to deploy all the forces such as Army, Navy & Air force to deal with the rescue operation. Helicopters airlifted stranded families from rooftops and dam gates were thrown open as incessant torrential monsoon rain continued .. The record shows that the scale of such rainfall years ago in 1924, or Malayalam Era 1099, when the rain fell for three weeks in the biggest flood the country had seen.
The worst affected areas are Chengannur in Alleppey district along with its Kuttanadu region, Chalakkudi in Thrissur dist., Pathanamthitta, Ernakulam, Wyanadu, Kozhikodu, Kannur & Idukki districts wherein landslides and heavy flow of water in the rivers washed off the shores including people and houses. Simultaneously, many parts in the western region of the state heavily flooded due to the slop geographic terrain of the state towards the west.
Please click on the following link if you would like to donate and please ensure you tick gift aid box consent column as every £ 1.00 you donate will be enhanced to another £ 0.25 by reclaiming the gift aid from HMRC, if you are a UK tax payer. You can also pay to charity’s bank a/c as per the details given in the home page.
https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=britishmalayali&pageUrl=38
Please visit www.britishmalayali.co.uk/news/charity for further details/news in malayalam.
