Relief being collected at TSC today too, trucks take relief to flooded areas

The Students against Discrimination movement today, Friday, are still collecting relief goods at the Teacher-Student Centre (TSC) of Dhaka University, for the flood-affected people of four districts in Sylhet division, Feni, Khagrachhari, Cumilla and other places of the country.

The relief collection programme which started Friday morning will continue on till 8:00 pm today.

After collecting relief throughout the day on Thursday, representatives of the student movement went with a few truckloads of relief from TSC to the affected areas.

The Students against Discrimination movement have set up a booth at the TSC gate to collect relief for the flood victims. People from all walks of life are handing over relief goods and cash, according to their ability, to the movement representatives.

Many students are working there as volunteers. Alongside relief goods, Tk 2,976,173 (Tk 29 lakh 76 thousand 173) was collected in cash.

People of all sections of the society are coming forward today too in response to this initiative of the Students Against Discrimination.

A spot visit Friday afternoon saw girl students in charge of the booth at the TSC gate. People were bringing bottled water, oral saline, puffed rice (moori), flattened rice (cheera), biscuits, dates and other dry food.

The students were taking these to the games room and cafeteria of TSC to store and sort. Many were providing cash too. The students were entering the cash amount in registers kept at the booth.

The movement's media and communications wing member Abdullah Salehin said that representatives of the Students against Discrimination movement had gone to the affected areas in 200 speedboats.

Speaking to Prothom Alo Friday afternoon, he said that there has been huge response to the call for relief assistance. Last night a few truckloads of relief had left from TSC to go to the affected areas.

A coordinator of the Students against Discrimination movement said that after collecting relief yesterday, many students, both girls and boys, worked at night in the TSC games room, packaging the relief.

The trucks that left last night for the flooded areas each carried 700 to 800 bags of relief. The relief carried by the trucks consisted of water, dry food, medicines, life jackets and essential goods.

The movement coordinators are actively keeping records of the relief collections.

After the floods broke out in the countries eastern regions, one of the coordinators of the Students against Discrimination Movement, Abu Baker Majumdar, announced the relief collection initiative in a press release on Wednesday.

Baker called upon all coordinators of the movement and volunteers to coordinate with the local voluntary organisations and people of their respective districts and upazilas to form volunteer teams.

The press release said that the central body would coordinate with all and run the programme to rescue persons trapped in the floods and to distribute relief goods.

Other than the Students against Discrimination movement, students in various departments were collecting relief at their own initiatives.

A group of students of the Disaster Science Climate Resilience Department on Friday afternoon were seen collecting relief in front of the Raju Memorial Sculpture. Some were going around with donation boxes collecting relief.