Days after the ghastly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama district that killed over 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, people across the world are involved in doing their bit for the fallen families and special prayer services.
The 26-year-old Indian American Viveik Patel, who originally hails from Vadodara, Gujarat, was profoundly anguished with the tragedy that had struck his country back home.
As an outcome, he made up his mind to help the families of fallen. “I initially went through the government website Bharat Ke Veer but they weren’t accepting any U.S. debit or credit cards. The site was also down due to a lot of traffic therefore, I couldn’t donate there,” he told quoted as saying by Indiatimes.
He felt the urge to support the CRPF troopers and their families by starting his own fundraiser after watching Uri-The Surgical Strike movie.
Uri chronicles the events of the surgical strike conducted by the Indian military against the suspected militants in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). It tells the story of the 11 tumultuous events over which the operation was carried out.
“I wanted to reach out to the maximum number of people and I think what better medium could we use than Facebook.” With an initial goal of USD 5,00,000, he started the fundraiser on Facebook on February 14 (US Time while it was February 15 in India).
Working as a Senior Business Analyst in Virginia, Patel leveraged his contacts and even connected with Facebook managers regarding his fundraising initiative.
Through his fundraiser, he managed to raise a quarter million dollars or USD 2,52,000 within just 12 hours. In just four days, Patel’s fundraiser had surpassed its goal of USD 5,00,000 and is about to hit a million dollar. At the moment, the Facebook fundraiser has donations worth USD 8,04,747 which approximately translates to Rs 5.75 crore.
Vivek was quoted by Indiatimes saying that he had been getting numerous calls from citizens in Australia, Germany, and Canada who wanted to help.
To start a fundraiser on Facebook, a person needs a Non-Governmental Organization name. With the absence of an NGO name, Vivek had to start the fundraiser in his own name. Though, he had conducted small donation drives when he was young but had never organized something at a global level.
As on Monday night, about 21,000 people had donated for families of the CRPF martyrs and 75,000 had shared the fundraiser. Patel was as well invited on a Chicago-based Indian Radio station called Desi Junction radio where he answered queries of the listeners who wanted to know about this initiative.
“We are all Indians at the end of the day. No matter where you live, what you do, you will always remain an Indian. We cannot compare the sacrifices made by our soldiers with money but we can provide help to their families.” he said.
However, Patel has to ensure that such a huge fortune gets transferred smoothly and safely reaches the victims of this tragedy.
The initiative is also being supported by Facebook Fundraiser by helping the organizers to guarantee that the money goes to the right place as quickly as possible.
-Sowmya
