Kora Kagaz: Helping out needy students realise their dreams

Neha Walia

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 18

Recycling discarded notebooks and distributing them among the underprivileged students, the Kora Kagaz initiative by Chennai-based youngster Pratik has managed to sensitise people towards environment while encouraging more kids from limited background to continue studies. The campaign has managed to get several schools and colleges to collaborate for the cause, donating notebooks while engaging students of the same school to work voluntarily towards collecting and segregating the discarded notebooks.

“We have created a strong network of volunteers, with a team of 70 volunteers from BBKDAV College, which has also established a Kora Kagaz club that collects discarded notebooks, segregate the pages that are not used and bind them to create notebooks for the needy children. Several institutions including Bhavan’s SL School and Sri Ram Ashram are associated with us and we have managed to distribute approximately 800 books in single cycle of our campaign till date,” informs Pratik. A similar campaign in Chennai, had got Pratik inspired to begin something similar in Amritsar.

“Back in Chennai, the Kora Kagaz initiative has established a wide network, with distribution now reaching to even schools in remote villages,” he informs.

Providing free of cost writing material to rural children, Pratik says that such a move will definitely encourage the children to continue their studies. “Most of the kids from underprivileged families find it tough to maintain their studies due to financial burden of buying study material. A small move will help ease their burden, while also recycling the paper that otherwise go waste. A proactive approach is required to expand the campaign,” he said.