SHILLONG: A group of youth is riding their two wheelers in different parts of the country to raise funds for holistic academies which are working for nutritional needs of the children besides making them active in different sports activities.
Madhav Arora along with his group of riders reached Shillong on Saturday morning and interacted with the officials and young children of Tyllilang Basketball Academy here in Shillong.
Earlier, Prof. Uday Damodaran of XLRI Jamshedpur in 2014 had taken 60 days leave from XLRI and solo-driven his Renault Duster car around the country to raise funds for 22 NGOs.
He managed to raise about Rs.11 lacs through this initiative of his: Garlanding India.
Last year in December, Madhav along with his other friends started Garlanding India 2.0, wherein young volunteer riders would ride motorbikes and cover 4 segments of the country – north, south, east and west.
“The focus of Garlanding India 2.0 is on India’s children. For many of the kids from the underprivileged sections, good training in sports, along with good nutrition and decent school education offers the ray of hope to break out of their condition. But sadly for many Indian kids even this option is ruled out. India has a poor record on infant nutrition and health. 38% of Indian kids under the age of 5 are stunted and 21% of them are severely wasted; for these kids, sports is never an option”, he said.
He said that their target is to raise funds worth Rs 2 crores for children’s health and nutrition, and sports.
The group of riders completed Southern Spin in December 2017 which was flagged off in IIM Bangalore adding they have also started Eastern Essay on 7th March 2018 (which was flagged off in IIM Calcutta) where the riders are being sponsored by Indiabulls.
Initially, there were five riders in the team but one rider had to leave the ride due to personal reasons
“Apart from raising funds, we are also trying to popularise sports along the way, he added.