A working group set-up in November 2008 with the members of the ‘Just For Assam’ decided to raise fund to rehabilitate the survivors of a series of deadly bombs that had blasted in various parts of Assam on 30th October 2008. A donation appeal was made via www.justgiving.com. A sum of GBP 4276.00 was raised, and a further GBP 827.54 was received as Gift Aid. A project coordinator in Assam was appointed who disbursed the financial packages such as educational expenses or rent subsidies to beneficiaries selected from a list of victims.

Donation: £4177.75 (£4276 minus charges)
Tax Relief: £588 (£827 minus charges)
Total: £4766 (£5103 minus charges by the Just Giving, provider of the online donation facility)

This amounts to INR 333,620.00 at the exchange rate 1GBP=70INR.

Following is a brief outline of how we selected the beneficiaries and decided to help given.

  • Base assessment – collect list of victims (Guwahati) and verify
  • Shortlist a set of families for further assessment
  • Assess short listed families in detail and understand need

The official list published by the Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup was used as a starting point and reference for the victims of the tragedy. All victims in this list were considered, and based on projected collections of GBP 5000, it was decided to short list families based on the following criteria.

  1. The victim is deceased and was the sole or primary bread earner of the family
  2. The victim is survived by three or more dependents including a spouse

The assessment was carried out with the aid of social workers Mofid Rahman and Buljit Buragohain. Details such as amount of aid received from other agencies and the government, education level of dependents, current livelihood scenario etc. were collected. The dependents were also given some counseling at the same time by Mofid and Buljit. Then the coordinator appointed for the project visited the victim’s families and collected the information. Finally, out of the 10 short listed families, 6 families with 15 individual beneficiaries were selected. The remaining 4 families did not actually require our help.

The aid to the respective family was distributed either directly to the beneficiary or the custodian, if minor. In case of tuition or course fee, the fee was paid to the institution directly. A few minors were given National Savings Certificates or Bank Drafts to fulfil their future educational need.

The Beneficiaries