2017 saw major floods happening all across North and Central Bengal. Districts like Howrah, Hooghly, Malda were all facing huge losses in life, livestock and property. It was during this phase that Lt Mrs. Mahuya Bhadra came across an appeal on Facebook about 5 Villages in Howrah where people were without food supplies for more than a week due to the floods. It was then that she along with her son and his friends decided to reach the locals with supplies to support their struggle.
We came together, formed a group, collected funds by going door to door for help, arranged for ration supplies and transportation and finally started our journey towards the villages. Upon reaching there we realized that the situation was worse than what we expected- the five villages - Horali, Sitapur Gaja, Sultanpur, Daspur and were mostly underwater and most of the people were without their home and had taken refuge in an Ashram surrounded by water. It took us almost six hours to finish our distribution and our supplies weren't even sufficient for half of the villagers. ... When we were all set to return we saw the locals in tears and the children running behind our truck for more. That was a very tough visual for us to ignore. On our way back we decided to do something about the situation in an organized and bigger manner. The group became a team and we registered as a Charitable Trust with Mahuya Bhadra as our settler. For the next two months, we organized several relief camps providing the villagers with ration and cooked food, as the water levels slowly reduced. We also organized a free medical camp for the villagers to treat the waterborne diseases that follow after floods. Once the floods were over it was time for some constructive development of the villages. Our target was to focus on education, women empowerment and healthcare. In the next six months we managed to stop child marriages from happening in the villages, educated the women on menstrual hygiene and it's importance, built a library and a computer centre for the children and organise two free medical camps. Those few months also saw us work hand in hand with some notable NGOs and charities from different parts of West Bengal. We learned, grew and gained experience and have never stopped since then.