For two children in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore district, a video published by TNM has led to a year of uninterrupted education. The family of 6-year-old Zoya and 7-year-old Tanveer has received Rs1.36 lakh from TNM's readers, after they learnt that they were struggling to pay the children's school fees.
The trio had been filmed selling flowers on the busy streets of Marudhamalai in Coimbatore. When video journalist Sudhakar learned of this, he immediately alerted the TNM team. The kids' father Shabeer Ahamed who relied on selling goods in trains for a living, was forced to bring his children to the streets with him for work after trains were stopped due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I feel bad about bringing my children to sell flowers. But I have no choice. They are taking online classes. We have no income because trains haven't started," Shabeer told TNM. "We kept thinking it would begin again but it didn't. I didn't know what to do, so we are selling flowers and earning Rs 300-400 a day. We are not in a situation to pay fees. We are doing this to satiate our hunger," he had said.
Soon after the video was published, several people came forward to help the family pay the children's fees. Dharmapuri MP Dr Senthil Kumar helped streamline this process, and quickly conducted a fundraiser on Twitter raising over a lakh for the siblings' education. Individual contributors too pitched in.
By the end of the day, Shabbir had received Rs 1.36 lakh and the family is overjoyed.
"Our livelihood was completely affected. That is why I took the children with me to sell flowers. people we don't know have helped us. We have got Rs 1.25 lakh (as of Friday evening) in our account as thousands," he told TNM after the campaign. "Thank you very much. A lot of people have advised me to not take my children to the roadside for work. Lot of people who saw The News Minute are now buying two packets of flowers instead of one," he added.