SARVAM, in association with Shanti Ashram, organises many programmes to mark the official observance of IDEP on the 17th of October as part of the celebration of International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (IDEP) every year.

This year, SARVAM organised an awareness programme for more than 750 students on eradicating poverty from the 8th to the 15th of October to commemorate the international event.  Throughout this programme, students were exposed to ways to contribute to poverty eradication.  The coordinators began by addressing the causes and solutions of poverty.

Some programmes organised by SARVAM were:

Food Bank: Food Bank certainly is an activity to motivate the students to provide relief for people who have been, due to poverty, pushed into acute suffering of hunger.  The students went to houses in their locality and asked households to contribute food grains.  They collected the food grains and then took part in distributing them to families in need.  The contributions received were rice, pulses, grains, vegetables and other cooking materials.  More than 100 students collected the food materials and helped around 50 families in their villages.

Planting of saplings: "He who plants a tree, plants a hope" having this in mind, the students planted saplings during the celebrations.  Planting saplings is one of the robust solutions for today's stressing problem- Global Warming.  This afforestation programme directly or indirectly eradicates poverty.  The students planted around 100 trees.  It was declared that the students would be awarded at the end of two months based on the growth of their trees.  This has shown much motivation in the students, and they have assured to take the best care of their trees.

Poster Activity: Students were motivated to draw on poverty eradication and their role in child poverty eradication.  After the short introduction, all the students were asked to ideate and create posters on their role in poverty eradication.  Student posters showed many inventive, innovative, and imaginative ideas on the topic, demonstrating each student's creativity.  This activity was delightful for them, and they got motivated to eradicate poverty by playing a role in it.

Interfaith Prayer: An interfaith prayer to eradicate child poverty was done collectively by all the students.

Pledge: In the end, all students took a pledge on poverty eradication (Uruthi Mozhi).

At the end of the week-long programme, students understood this grave social and economic problem better.  The first step has been taken now, and SARVAM hopes that, together, we can solve the issues of poverty.