MUMBAI: While most students of her age use WhatsApp to chat mundane things, Rida Khan, 14, used it to mobilise support for the underprivileged children and their parents during the coronavirus-induced lockdown. After coordinating for the NGO Salaam Bombay Foundation to help volunteers reach out to 7000 families with ration kits and crowd funding Rs 3 lakh for the heart surgery of a 10-year-old child of a migrant worker, Khan has emerged as one of the youngest “angels”, one who makes difference in the city.
When the severity of the lockdown hit with starvation staring in the face of the poor, Khan, a 9th standard student at the elite Bombay Scottish School in Mahim, thought to do something. She initially joined Chhoti Si Asha, an NGO that works for the sustainable livelihood of underprivileged women and children. Through resources pooled in from relatives and friends, Khan arranged relief materials for 150 needy families.
Seeing that a lot more needed to be done, she needed a bigger platform to use her skills to network and coordinate. Salam Bombay Foundation which has a track record of working with the underprivileged made her a coordinator between the organization and its volunteers. “I oversaw the operations, from identifying the poor families in need to taking the ration kits to them. We reached out to 7000 families with rations,” said Khan. Her early exposure to technology like use of computer came in handy in compiling the list and disseminating information.
“When we saw her eagerness to help the needy in these difficult times, we had to encourage her. Like a trained professional, she coordinated the collection and distribution of ration kits during the lockdwon,” said her proud father Salman Khan, a senior bureaucrat.
A couple of months ago, at the chamber of cardiolgolist Dr Zainulabeden Hamdulay (she had gone there with her grandfather) she met 10-year-old Wajid Ali, son of a migrant worker, who needed urgent operation for a congenital heart disease. She pooled in money from relatives and friends and crowd funded Rs 3 lakh to pay for the successful heart surgery of the boy. “Hello friends, would like to thank Rida who came as an angel in disguise…May Allah bless you,” writes Zohra Morbiwala on a WhatsApp group, acknowledging the teenager’s works.