A crisis like COVID-19 needed a fitting response and India’s teenagers were more than ready for the challenge. Well-versed with the latest technology and a desire to help the underprivileged communities around them, several young minds found crowdfunding as a perfect medium to extend their support. During the pandemic, ImpactGuru.com, India’s leading healthcare financing platform, observed a sharp rise in the number of fundraisers set up by students across India, key findings captured in its Report “How India’s Teenagers Became a Voice for the Underprivileged During COVID-19”.
ImpactGuru.com
ImpactGuru.com noticed students from metropolitan areas in India step up to assist their less-fortunate counterparts from small cities and villages. Mumbai and Delhi were amongst the metropolitan cities that had the largest number of fundraisers setup by teenagers, followed by Hyderabad, Bangalore and Chennai.
Recently, the students from Bombay Scottish School in Mumbai’s Mahim, with the help of their parents, came forward to help the bus drivers and attendants who took care of their safety all these years. The kids took up the task of fundraising, organized online bake sales, conducted dance and gymnastic tutorials – all to raise funds and help the bus didis and drivers. Their ImpactGuru.com fundraiser crossed the target milestone, total raised was Rs. 78 lakhs with the help of 1,504 generous donors!
One of the students Sanaya Bakerywala from Bombay Scottish School, Mahim, said, “I wanted to help the bus didis and drivers as I felt it was my duty to do something that would benefit them and ease out their pandemic days. I started collecting donation amounts on my online platform “Snack Stories”, I also added my past profits and savings to the donation amount so that it can be used to help here.”
Another notable fundraiser was one that was initiated by cousins Arjun and Kyra from Delhi NCR. The young dynamic duo set out to help a school which catered to 800+ children whose parents were daily wagers from low-income communities. Donors loved their initiative and helped them raise Rs. 2.74 lakh for their much-needed vision!
In a joint statement, Piyush Jain and Khushboo Jain, Co-Founders of ImpactGuru.com said, “During April 2020 to October 2021 alone, we saw a 40X increase in fundraisers set up by students in India, in comparison to the pre-pandemic numbers. In fact, fundraisers started by teenagers saw an increase in donations via newer payment methods. Paytm and Google Pay were amongst the top 5 payment methods used throughout the pandemic. ImpactGuru.com hopes to continue giving such young changemakers the platform they need to make their vision come alive.”
There is tremendous scope of humanitarian impact achieved by some of the brightest, most committed minds in the country. Due to the ease of use, safety and convenience around crowdfunding, more and more student-led fundraisers and initiatives can be expected to take the country by storm.
ImpactGuru.com is India’s leading healthcare financing platform for patients and raises money online for medical expenses via online crowdfunding such as COVID-19, cancer, transplants, and accidents. It aggregates a large number of online payments to allow any individual requiring financial assistance to raise funds for any social cause. For more information, please visit www.impactguru.com.