Hyderabad: Every Rupee counts in serving the needy says P Shashank

P Shashank, a youngster from Hyderabad, has always strived to help the needy people. But lack of sufficient funds would come in his way often. A passionate search for solution has ushered in a novel idea.

He started one-rupee challenge on social media through which he began collecting a rupee per person. He drove home the message that even a meagre rupee, if rendered collectively, would help accomplish a great task. Collecting and saving every rupee, Shashank gets around Rs 40,000 to help about 30 families a month.

Stating that 'every rupee counts,' Shashank, who has done his MBA in HR Management, and is currently running Y in India Foundation to serve the society, has helped hundreds of people during the Covid-19 crisis with his 'One Rupee Challenge'.

"Passionate to serve the country and the society, I got the opportunity during lockdown when people faced lot of adversities. Initially, even I was moved, but the situation demanded someone to act and reach out to people in distress, so I took the help of social media to do the same," said Shashank.

"When I saw people using challenges in different ways, it gave me an idea to start a challenge of my own to help others through the reach of the media. Now with digital and social media, it has become easier to reach a large number of people for a social cause," says the founder of Y in India.

The whole idea of the challenge is to show the value of one rupee and how it can be useful in the right way. "I discussed this concept with a few people and received overwhelming appreciation and encouragement which inspired me to this initiative. In the beginning, there weren't many contributions but steadily people from different places came forward to contribute money which boosted my confidence," he adds.

A rupee in today's world stands of no big value but that one rupee contributed by several people has helped render support for many. With the help of this contribution, the foundation has supplied masks, gloves, sanitizers, biscuits, and glucose water packets for many frontline workers and thousands of needy people during the lockdown.

"The aim is to serve people who are in emergency; it's not just Hyderabad but we would be going to any part in India to help the needy," says Shashank.