As they face their darkest hour, help pours in for evacuated Appa Pada families

Local organisations, as well as popular social media pages are coming forward to help these evacuated families of Appa Pada. While Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been providing food, shelter, clothes and other medical help, Mumbaikars are coming forward to help the victims of the fire in any way they can

Mumbai: For long this lesser privileged section might have felt uncared for and possibly, even unwanted in this huge metropolis, and they might be right to have felt so. However, in their direst hour of need, Mumbai is joining hands to help the 2,000 families that were rendered homeless in Appa Pada, Malad East, after a massive fire reduced a huge chunk of their settlement to ashes on Monday.

Mumbai, India - Mar 14, 2023 : Pictures from Malad's Appa Pada area where nearly 800 homes were destroyed after a Massive fire broke out on March 13, Killing 1, in Mumbai, India, on Tuesday, Mar 14, 2023.(Photo by Vijay Bate/HT Photo)

While the statistic ‘2,000 families’ is startling, it doesn’t give it a human face or reflect the suffering. The statistic includes children, it includes old people, it includes parents, and it includes students, who in the season of examinations, have seen their means for of a better future — their books and other educational equipment — being burnt down along with their homes. Dig deeper and the statistic reveals there are 250 students in it.

Local organisations, as well as popular social media pages are coming forward to help these evacuated families of Appa Pada. While Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has been providing food, shelter, clothes and other medical help, Mumbaikars are coming forward to help the victims of the fire in any way they can.

What is heartening is to see local schools and those in other parts of the city have started crowdfunding to help these affected students.

The victims had no chance to gather any of their belongings as they escaped the fire. They did not even have a change of clothes. As soon as they came to know about the devastation caused by the fire, the Kurar Vyapari Association of Malad collected clothes from the nearby shops, especially for children and women, and donated it to those affected on Tuesday and continued to do so on Wednesday. The members of the evacuated families were quietly picking up whatever fit them or their family members.

Balram Vishwakarma, co-founder of popular Instagram page called Andheri West S*** posting has also come forward to compile a list of NGOs and local institutions providing help. Through their popularity on Instagram, the page is trying to highlight and sensitise people on the problems faced by the locals due to fire and will be conducting a recce of the area on Thursday to start the help.

“Every materialistic possession they had has now turned into ashes. Appa Pada is one of the hundreds of the slum clusters that help Mumbai run, and right now, there’s nothing you or I, as the ‘10%’ of Mumbai’s society, are doing for them. In the next few days, we would be uploading verified posts and sources that are working at this very moment, helping the good folks of that locality rehabilitate. I am urging you all to assist them as much as you can in this tough moment.” said Vishwakarma.

And it does not stop with clothes. For those students, who lost all their educational materials in the fire, the big question they face is how to pursue their education. However, helping them in a big way are these students’ respective schools and many student associations who have come forward to help them.

“There are around 10 schools in the Appa Pada area where all these students are studying and we are conducting a survey to ensure that they don’t suffer academically,” said Jalinder Dalvi, office-bearer of Shikshak Bharti teachers’ union North Mumbai area and a teacher at Nutan Vidya Mandir.

“So far around 250 students have come in contact with the schools. The schools concerned are cooperating with them but they need clothes, educational materials,” Dalvi added.

The houses of about 110 students of Marathi and Hindi medium in Nutan Vidya Mandir of Saraswati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal in this area have been gutted in the fire.

“We are trying to provide necessary educational material, food, clothes to the students of Nutan Vidyamandir whose houses have been burnt down. For this, the teachers and students of the school have also raised some funds,” said Santosh Singh, trustee, Saraswati Shikshan Prasarak Mandal.

Anupam Singh, principal of the school, said that our inspection revealed that the houses of 86 students of Swami Vivekananda school were burnt. “Some of these students, who were in class 10, were given the educational material notes available in the school. While other students are being given the necessary help,” Singh added.

Meanwhile, 32 students of Maharani Saibai Vidyamandir school have lost their homes, said school principal Mansi Bagwe. “We have immediately provided textbooks, notebooks and pens as well as schoolbags to the students so that they can come to school. We will also provide them with other relief materials as soon as their shelter issue is resolved.”

Not just school children, even college students have received help, “Appa Pada is also home to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Of these, 20 to 25 students have come in contact with us. We are going to visit the place on Thursday to conduct a survey,” said Rohit Dhale, president, Chhatra Bharti, a student union. “We will follow up with the higher and technical education minister and the vice-chancellor to ensure that these students do not suffer academically,” he added.