Hyderabad: Cycling for a cause by Relief Riders

Hyderabad: Consisting of 135 volunteers, the Cycling Community of Hyderabad has launched the Relief Rider campaign a week ago and served hundreds of Covid patients with essentials.

"Every day is a very busy day. Managing between our professional work, our personal life and Relief Riders' activities, have been very challenging. We wake up to the calls and deliveries every morning starting at 6, but we still do because we love society. We find responsibility in serving people", says Naresh, a volunteer of Cycling Community Hyderabad.

"As soon as we initiated this, we really felt two things, negative and positive, the real gap in society during this pandemic. People are suffering. Many are sick. Many are struggling. Many are dying. People are locked up in their homes. They cannot come out for the basic needs, for medicines or essentials. On top of this, the most vulnerable are senior citizens. There is not much help we are doing as a society and they are left alone. Many children are far away. They are in foreign countries or in different places in Hyderabad or in Telangana, while the parents (senior citizens) are alone at home. We planned to help them and initiated this and are happy to serve people," said Santhana Selvan, the major person behind the initiative.

The positive side is that we have so many volunteers who are coming forward every single day. Super proud of Hyderabad, he added.

"Very interesting things happen every day. When a request comes in, there are always two or three volunteers coming forward to deliver one request. This itself is an amazing situation in Hyderabad. In addition to that, if the requester is not able to pay, we get two or three voluntary sponsors who come forward to take care of medicines or groceries or food. This also is an amazing situation in Hyderabad," remarks Dinesh.

Another volunteer, Ravi Sambari, says, we get to hear so many thanks every day. The weak senior citizen's vibrating, shivering voice I hear: God has sent you like an angel. May God Bless you all in different languages Telugu, Hindu, English! It is heart touching to hear such voices.

On the other hand, we hear voices from people in the US, who are helpless, though they have money to spend, but they cannot help their parents directly. We are the angels in between and filling the need, he added.

We are really filling the gap in society. We are really touching lives. We are really helping people. We are doing something useful in society. Every day we wake up happy, busy and ready to help. This is such a satisfying experience, says the Relief Riders team.