This 17-Year-Old Pune Student Collects Surplus Medicines & Distributes To Those In Need

A 17-year-old student is helping the needy in his own unique way. What started as a community project as part of his school project, has become a highlighting feature of his work.

Shubhankar Darbari has started a medicine bank by collecting surplus drugs from relatives and families living around his school for the people in need.

The community project that started four years ago has now turned into a non-profit organisation, ¡°Aid2Needy¡±. Shubhankar has created a stock of medicines he sends to charitable hospitals for distribution.

toi

The medicines, the Victorious Kidss Educares (VKE) student collects are usually donated by people who have a surplus of them, according to a report by The Times of India.

The young student has also developed a phone application for people where they can raise requests to donate medicines.

Once there¡¯s a donation request alert on the app, the volunteers appointed by Shubhankar can collect the drugs from their doorstep.

bccl/representational image

¡°It¡¯s a unique ¡®bank¡¯ for the well-offs to donate their surplus medicines. People from the economically challenged section, who cannot afford to buy medicines, can get them free of cost from the ¡®bank¡¯ through the charitable hospitals,¡± Shubhankar told TOI. He aspires to set up similar units across the country.

bachpanexpress

He says that the idea of setting up a medicine bank struck him in 2015 when he met Omkar Nath Sharma, popularly known as ¡°medicine baba¡± conducting a similar activity in New Delhi.

¡°After meeting him, I realized that the cause should be carried out in other cities by using technology as a leveraging tool. Keeping this in mind, I created a prototype portal by online training programmes," he said.