How to help a martyr's family

[Kati]

BRF Guru-log,
Here is the touching article on a great martyr who has left behind a pregnant wife and
a 3 year old son.
http://www.rediff.com/news/special/it-w ... 150206.htm

Please help me get more info about how to send my humble little help directly to the family.

Any other suggestions will be most welcome. I know armed forces welfare society can accept donations, but I want to contact the family directly.

Thanks in advance.

[abhischekcc]

Please do post how to help his family, I will post on my company's email network to get them to donate.

[member_28533]

Great thought ! Please let me know how I can help.. willing to send a check/DD immediately, also will pass it to my friend circle.

[Baikul]

Excellent idea. I'm up for helping out also.

[parikh]

Contact the journalist who wrote the article Archana Masih ,she may have their contacts.

https://www.facebook.com/archana.masih.7

Do post them here , if you are able to contact them.

[Philip]

Tx folks.I think this is an excellent idea,that BRF start a Martyr's Fund" campaign,where members directly send financial/other help to the families of martyrs. The red tape that the families experience after their loved ones pass on is sometimes as cruel as the loss of the individual.Once we are able to get the names and addresses,etc., of the families,we can see how best to help them.

[Yagnasri]

Please let me give the details to as to how to make payment.

[vishnua]

Completely agree with starting a fund here at BRF. Would not call it Martyr's Fund rather something like fallen servicemen etc..

If the "Ulema/Mods" of BRF are reading this please advise..


Added later: Please provide details on where and how to donate.

[member_28533]

Parikh and Kati,

Can either of you take initiative as you two did some research on this ?

[fanne]

Let me know please as well.

[Raja Bose]

Tx folks.I think this is an excellent idea,that BRF start a Martyr's Fund" campaign,where members directly send financial/other help to the families of martyrs.

Sorry to nip this in the bud but the short answer is, no. BRF has been thru this before and the possibility of fraud and misuse of funds is simply too high and I can personally attest to that (Oldies will remember it as the QuikClot affair). If anybody wants to do a private fundraising effort, please do so but do not involve BRF in it and please note that there will be no endorsement for any such fundraising from BRF. If yellow matter hits the fan, BRF is not liable or responsible for anything, period.

Now on a separate note let me be a cynical skinflint Yindoo for a moment here (where is GeorgeJ when you need him, hain?? ) hence, apologies in advance for the harsh language that follows...

As is evident from this thread and many such threads related to fundraising that we have had in the past, 99.9999% people are interested in donating onlee rather than organizing a fund raising effort. That is why you see a plethora of 'please tell me where to send the money' posts. The reason for that is simple. Donating money (as a lot of members are pledging to do here) is a noble act indeed but is also the simplest thing to do in a fund raising effort. The tough and thankless task is to:

(a) Organize the fundraising;

(b) Manage the funds;

(c) Get the funds to the correct recipient(s) legally and in acceptable & verifiable form;

(d) Ensure all donors get sufficiently validated proof to their satisfaction that their funds have indeed reached the right recipient(s).

And this is just covering the broad basics. The details are much more involved given the baboo(n)s typically in charge of governments all over the world.

So before you decide to do fundraising, make sure you have the patience and time to do it for months and if required years. As an example, the QuickClot effort took over 2 years of sustained effort by which time most of the members who had originally offered to help in organizing the fund raising had long since lost interest and dropped off. So, once again, instead of thinking with your hearts, think with your heads and only if you are prepared to take the pain for no gain or recognition, go for it. Of course as no good deed goes unpunished, instead of kudos you might get brickbats or people might question your honesty and integrity in the bargain. So if you are one of those strong souls who enjoy getting kicked in the 'nads by gnarled feet of Thai kickboxers, you will love this. But if you are only willing to make a half-a$$sed effort and are not fully committed, its best you don't initiate the effort itself rather than abandoning it half-way trying to convince yourself that at least you tried. The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Plus doing that is highly disrespectful to the martyr's families and to the sacrifices made by their sons/daughters. They are typically poor people from villages/small towns and toying with their emotions like this is worse than shooting their loved one dead.

Even if you do end up with a successful collection of funds and have a cheque/draft/bag of cash in your hand, you still need to navigate the vagaries of our society and its traditions. Remember that our jawans don't typically come from liberal middle class city bred backgrounds and in their absence their families may forget the grief and actually indulge in money grab in ways which would disgust/scare away 99.99999% naive do-gooders/piss corps types. So be warned and be well prepared to face that and tackle it effectively. You may have to be a harda$$ here who can kick mush and take names to make the effort succeed. There is no easy way out here. You really need to be doing this becoz you want to genuinely help the martyr's family against all odds without any need for recognition. So think hard and if you make your decision to go ahead with a fundraising effort, stick with your decision against all odds just like the martyred jawan stood firm against the terrorist's bullets. This is no TV channel you can switch instantly using a remote when its gets too disturbing to experience.

And if you think its too much effort, don't worry about it and donate to the Army Welfare Fund. At least some money from that gets used for welfare though a portion may fund some Jernail's golf carts.

And last but not the least, please none of this "Hey! why doesn't XYZ take charge of fundraising?" BS. This is the typical "Why doesn't somebody do something" syndrome we have in our SDRE society every day. People want others to take the pain, rather than themselves. If you are willing to take charge, raise your hand and do so without fanfare but don't go around nominating others to take charge. Otherwise, just indicate you will contribute but then STFU till someone volunteers to take charge himself/herself - in fact its best that at least 2-3 people are in charge of day to day operations to verify each other's actions.

OK, carry on.

[Mort Walker]

^^^Well put and my thoughts exactly when I saw this thread.

[parikh]

100% agree Bose Babu , Bhavesh Bhatt was the maha g**** who swindled the QuikClot funds , may the Arrah liberally apply QuikClot to all his orfices when he meets his 72.