Clothes distributed to sanitary workers at Magh Mela campus

PRAYAGRAJ: A group of five volunteers from Pratapgarh based Kapra Bank including Alok Kumar Singh, Ashish Kumar Singh, Abhishek Mishra, Slok Mishra and Babloo Pal on Sunday distributed around 10,000 clothes among temporary sanitary workers and their families in sector 2, 3, 4 and 5 on mela campus. Hundreds of labourers along with their families had arrived mela campus from different parts of the state including Banda, Chitrakoot, Sonbhandra, Bhadohi, Kaushambi and other districts to work as temporary sanitary workers during Magh Mela and were assigned to make mela campus clean and green. However, after acknowledging the fact that these poor and temporary sanitary workers are living in open area and staying under tents, the volunteers of Kapra Bank clothes for men, women and children and arrived mela campus to distribute them among labourers.Head of the Kapra Bank, Alok Kumar Singh, who is also a primary teacher posted at Satyendra Bahadur Singh Junior High School , Rajapur Vindhan, Kunda in Pratapgarh district told TOI, “We have been distributing clothes among poor and down trodden people of all age groups in mela campus since one decade”. The idea of Kapra Bank gained momentum in 2011 when Alok Kumar noticed an old woman shivering due to cold wave near Pratapgarh railway station, he offered his own woolen sweater to the old woman. The fact was that Alok returned with the idea of setting up a Kapra Bank in Pratapgarh with an intention to offer woollen and other sorts of clothes to needy people living in slums and other areas. Singh initially searched for old clothes in his houseand donated them. He then started visiting door to door in Kunda and adjoining blocks to collect old clothes to be distributed among needy. When he shared his activities on social media, people started sending consignments of clothes from India as well as abroad.