Team Prahladaa, a Thuravoor-based collective, sold cakes during Christmas for three years in a row, vended vegetables during Onam, and conducted ‘challenges’, all to raise money to buy an ambulance for public use. Earlier this week, the group succeeded, albeit in part, when they bought a mini ambulance costing ₹8 lakh.
“Our aim was to buy an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ambulance for the public in Cherthala taluk. Unfortunately, we could not raise the amount needed, which was initially set at ₹30 lakh in 2020. The price of the ICU ambulance has since gone up to ₹42 lakh and we found it very difficult to raise the money. So, we bought a mini ambulance utilising ₹5.04 lakh raised through cake challenge, ₹150 challenge and vegetable sales along with ₹61,358, the interest gained for the amount, and other donations from like-minded people,” says Bharath Jagadeesh, secretary, Prahladaa Social Service Trust.
The ambulance, which is expected to commence service on Kerala Piravi (Kerala Day, November 1), will ferry patients and provide palliative care. It will operate “without the goal of earning revenue”.
Team Prahladaa, mainly consisting of youngsters and students, under the aegis of the Prahladaa Social Service Trust, launched their efforts to buy an ambulance in July 2020. They first conducted the ‘₹150 challenge’ by urging people to donate ₹150 or more for the cause. It helped them raise ₹3.92 lakh. The first ‘cake challenge’ by setting up a temporary cake sales counter by the side of National Highway 66 opposite the Thuravoor taluk hospital was held the same year in connection with Christmas. The group made a profit of ₹44,678. It was followed by a ‘vegetable challenge’ during the 2021 Onam and two more cake challenges in December 2021 and December 2022, making a total profit of ₹67,477 from the three events.
The group says that they will continue their efforts to buy an ICU ambulance. “None of the ambulances in the region have critical care facilities. We have already approached a few organisations for Corporate Social Responsibility fund and a couple of them have conveyed their willingness to provide funds,” says Mr. Jagadeesh.
