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Nepal Flash Floods: DU students step up to support peers
With flash floods along the Nepal-Tibet border claiming over 600 lives and eaving more than 2,400 missing, DU students are stepping up to support their Nepalese peers with financial, emotional and logistical aid.
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As catastrophic flash floods continue to batter Nepal, leaving behind massive losses and displacement, the distress has travelled far beyond the country’s borders and reached Delhi University (DU), which is home to a fairly large community of Nepalese students. The environment in their hostel rooms and PGs is sombre ever since devastating images and videos of floods have been flashing across the social media. Some students haven’t been able to reach their families at all. Nabil Acharya, second-year student, Satyavati College (Evening), shares “It has been a week since I last spoke to my family back home, and I have no idea if they are doing okay. Calls are not connecting now, I am trying to reach them through Instagram, which is also not working out. At this point, it’s just about waiting. That’s all I can do. All I want is one piece of information on their whereabouts.”
Others have been lucky in this regard, but are desperate to go home and yet can’t. “Thankfully, my family is fine. But our house is badly damaged and they have lost a lot of valuables. It feels so strange to be away from them right now. I want to go back home, but my parents are not allowing me. They tell me to just focus on my life and studies in Delhi, as that would give them a lot more comfort than me going back there. But how can I not be there when my family needs me the most.” says Usha Karki, a student at DU’s Faculty of Law.
Through this all, its the fellow students who have stepped up to offer whatever support they can — financial, logistical, and emotional.
Standing in solidarity
Lavanya Raskoti, from Delhi Nepal Students Association, who is a recent graduate of Vivekananda College, describes how the student community has been working to identify their peers who are in need. “We have been using all our internal network, WhatsApp group, social media, and even word of mouth to identify those students who have their families stuck in the floods. Once we find these students, we are trying to lend them all the support we can. They are in distress, and also some of them are struggling with finances as they rely on their parents to send them money through online transfers; they are struggling due to no network in flood-hit regions. So, we have also been raising funds to help such students financially. At the same time, we want to help those in Nepal and are hoping to raise sufficient funds so that we can also donate and send supplies.”
Building support for mental health
For Kanak Bisht, a second-year student at Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College, the response has meant rallying his friends to build a community of care that goes beyond money. “At this time emotional support is as much needed for these students as much as financial assistance. We have made a WhatsApp channel where if any student, who is struggling, has their family away from them, they can just share their details with us. We are also arranging meet-ups so that they can get out of their hostels, PGs, to help them change the environment they are in lest they feel alone in such difficult times when they hardly have any contact with their families back home.”
Driving donations
Payal Chandra, a first-year student at Daulat Ram College, who has been volunteering to collect and route essential supplies to flood-affected areas back home feels practical solutions work the best in such times. She says, “We are trying to raise funds to help, but have also initiated a donation drive. We are sharing messages in all social groups of the university requesting students to donate clothes, food supplies, medicines, hygiene products and any other essential supplies. We are partnering with local NGO’s where to send the collected supplies so that arrangements can be made for these to be delivered to the flood-hit parts of Nepal through a proper channel.”
