‘With a little help from her friends’, Meera Mehta, a student of the Aditya Birla school, raised the amount in the run-up to the Mumbai Marathon
WhatsApp is not only about using the “last seen” feature to track your partner. It can also be used to do a tremendous amount of good. Proving that point is Meera Mehta, a 16-year-old student of Aditya Birla school, who used WhatsApp to share information about collecting funds for an NGO in the run-up to the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon — and with a few friends, managed to raise Rs 25 lakhs for the cause.
The amount has been raised for the NGO Shrimad Rajchandra Love and Care, which takes care of children and patients in rural areas.
“I used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (in addition to WhatsApp),” said Meera, who had raised Rs 10 lakhs for the same NGO in 2014. This time, she led a team of 12 people, which made the collecting of funds a little easier. “We expressed our needs and what we are fighting for, and people responded. There were pictures on Instagram of our Viklang Centre (health care centre for disabled) and how it helped patients,” she added. Her collection efforts received an impetus when she managed to raise Rs 2 lakhs on her birthday, as a result of which, unitedwaymumbai.org (the site where the charitable transactions for the Mumbai Marathon take place) added an additional Rs 10,000 to her kitty.
Meera posted her NGO’s goals and achievements on various social networking sites as well as an appeal for funds. She also sacrificed birthday gifts in lieu of funds for the cause. Having attended a summer school in California in 2012 helped her gain funds internationally too.
“I have friends from all over the world from the summer school and they donated. On my birthday, I requested my relatives not to buy me presents but give money instead,” said Meera, who has been collecting funds for the NGO for the past three years now.
For those in her team, however, this was a first-time challenge and an induction programme with Meera helped prepare them for the meetings and presentations with corporate honchos who were then persuaded to contribute to the cause. Their biggest donor — a cancer patient in India who contributed Rs 6.5 lakh — however, chose to remain anonymous.
The Mumbai Marathon will be held on January 18.
