Singapore: Students cycle 100 km to raise funds for migrants in Mumbai

In an overwhelming move, two students at INSEAD Business School in Singapore, a Canadian and a Spanish, cycled 100 km for the fundraiser to assist the migrant labourers 4,000 km away in Mumbai’s Govandi suburb. Daren Xiao, 30 and Ke Xu Zhou, 29, raised Singaporean $1,700 as of May 10 alone in an initiative and hoped to reach their goal of accumulating $7,000 donations by May 15 through the Feeding From Far (FFF) campaign for coronavirus relief.  

Co-founded by Paritosh Pant, 28, the campaign marked Daren’s birthday on May 9 and would continue for at least seven days, as per the reports. Pant reportedly said that Daren and Zhou completed the gruelling 100 km cyclothon in Singapore for the COVID-19 cause to help the underprovided battle the pandemic. Started as a scant neighbourhood kitchen mission, the FFF campaign took off early April during the peak phase of lockdown in Baiganwadi slum space of Govandi. Since the launch, the campaign raised funds to afford 400,000 meals for the poor migrants within six weeks, according to a news agency report.  

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FFF campaign's Rs 1 crore fund

Graduate of the nation’s premier catering institute, IHM Mumbai, Pant was quoted saying that the campaign was co-founded with Adv. Pooja Reddy with support from the legal fraternity of the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal.  The large donations by the bodies helped the group kick-start the service, he added. Further, he said, the FFF had grown to be a severe caregiver for thousands of migrants stranded in lockdown, and the campaign collected funds of practically Rs 1 crore from numerous quarters, a news agency reported.  

Daran Xiao created a GoFundMe post on Facebook where she wrote, “The underprivileged are heavily impacted by COVID-19 as water and food became inaccessible. With 1 CAD we can support one day’s worth of food for someone in need. If this could be a cause you care about.” 

Several acclaimed firms and celebrities affiliated with the humanitarian mission and helped accumulate over Rs 50 lakh for the COVID-19 relief, as per media reports. a number of celebs like Vishal Dadlani, Abish Mathew, Monica Dogra, Tanmay Bhat, Saba Azad, Rega Jha, Harish Iyer, and others came together to support the cause. The FFF neighborhood kitchen was then established in the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)’s Al Mahdi School in Bainganwadi, Govandi. 

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(Image Credit: PTI)