In response to the devastation caused by the Oct. 29 super cyclone that hit India, two student cultural groups are organizing students to help provide relief for the survivors of the tragedy.
The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth and the Hindu Students Council are working with the Center for South Asian Studies to raise funds to send to the devastated area.
Relief agencies estimate the death toll to be in the tens of thousands but an official death toll has not yet been released.
With such a high level of destruction, students involved said they believe supplying the survivors with funds is essential.
SPICMACAY Chief Coordinator Sunny Takkallapalli encouraged students to "take a moment and think of what it would be like to have nothing left, no family and no belongings."
SPICMACAY is working closely with the Orissa Forum, a humanitarian relief organization, to ensure the money collected from students goes straight to the victims and does not pass through many hands, Takkallapalli said.
"There is a worldwide effort to collect money to send to the victims in India. We are working with a non-governmental humanitarian agency that is dealing directly with the flood victims," third-year College student Gaurav Raina-Thapan said.
The money will be used to provide short, medium and long-term relief to the survivors, Takkallapalli said.
Immediate relief includes food, shelter, clothing and medicine to stop the spread of disease.
Medium and long-term relief will be to rebuild the total infrastructure of business and industry, transportation and agriculture.
"Every means of living have been lost," Takkallapalli said.
The student groups "have sent out e-mails to University student leaders and the Charlottesville community" to promote their cause, she said.
There is also a table set up on the second floor of Newcomb Hall where "we are giving people information on the cyclone and collecting donations," HSC member Nilay Thaker said.
The cyclone, which struck the state of Orissa -- a region of India -- has affected over 10 million people, leaving close to two million homeless.
Takkallapalli said that during the super cyclone, water rose 30 feet and hurled itself into the land at 200 miles per hour, demolishing everything.
"It is the worst cyclone to hit India ever and it caused such devastation ... the question now is of existence, not living," Raina-Thapan said. "Four hundred villages remain inaccessible due to roads [that were] destroyed and some people refuse to go into the villages due to the stench of the carcasses of animals and humans"
Read More
New School of Data Science building opens with remarks and ceremony
By Cecilia Mould | 14 hours agoThe four-story, 61,000 square-foot building includes four classrooms and two seminar rooms, as well as a two-story central hub for hosting events.
Democratic Futures Project fellow Félix Maradiaga announces campaign to end arbitrary detention
By Caroline Hagood | 14 hours agoA public website for the campaign launched Friday, which Maradiaga says is the first step towards raising awareness.
HRL preassigns 25 percent of returning resident advisors for 2024-25 academic year
By Cecilia Mould | 17 hours agoSome SRs are upset with this change, with two SRs saying that it has somewhat reduced the relative autonomy they have had when choosing their staff in past years.
