Students take crowd-fund route to help victims
Times of India | 11 October 2025She teamed up with classmates, all students of classes I to X, and her headmaster Aminool Islam — a 38-year-old resident of Bagribari who himself lost his house in the 1998 floods — to seek help from visitors coming to see the devastation in their hamlet, especially the adjoining Hoglapatapara, where 110 of 205 houses were razed to the ground due to the water from the Jaldhaka breaching the embankment.
Each day, Sabita and her friends stand with a donation box at Bagribari market, about a kilometre from the damaged site, and wait for visitors to return.
"We plead with them to help us, telling them they have seen how our parents, neighbours, and relatives are being forced to live in the local Gadheyarkurti School or on the railway tracks near Jaldhaka river. Many have come forward and helped," she said.
The motley group of students, their parents, and the school headmaster — and other teachers — managed to collect around Rs 1 lakh since Monday.
"For 200 families who lost everything here, this amount is too little.
But, while the govt and NGOs are pitching in for now and providing temporary food and shelter, the village needs long-term reconstruction. We plan to distribute whatever we collect among the locals here for reorganising their livelihood, and this decision has been accepted by all. We are not asking for alms, nor is there any pressure on anyone coming here to contribute.
But those clicking photos here are witnessing the devastation first-hand.
We are appealing to their conscience," said Aminool.
The students have now carried their appeals through social media, too, attracting a wide range of responses. "Besides the block medical team, which responded immediately, an Abhaya clinic has been started here by Aniket Mahato," said Aminool.
Nandini told TOI she wanted all her classmates back with her at the school.
"Till the time the school remains shut, as it is where villagers are staying, we are standing here in relay mode, one or two of us taking turns with our parents to seek help. I wish all my friends who lost their books in the calamity to get new ones," added Nandini.
