Poverty is one of the biggest challenges that many countries, especially developing ones, face. According to the World poverty clock (2022), around 83 million people in India were estimated to be living in extreme poverty. Coming from unprivileged sections, these people often lack the access to basic amenities of life.
Underprivileged children and women are majorly affected by poverty. According to UNICEF, around 6.1 million children with ages ranging from 6 to 13 years old do not attend preschool.
Adolescent girls coming from unprivileged backgrounds often experience various challenges due to their gender, age,caste and socio-economic status. 40% of these girls are anaemic, 27% have been married early and 8% have been through early childbearing as stated by the UNICEF report.
These figures should be concerning for an individual living in the country as the issue of poverty can have a negative impact on the nation’s economy, progress, development, and prosperity which will eventually affect them either directly or indirectly.
Reasons for serving poor and needy
Here are some of the reasons for serving the poor and needy-
- Tax benefits
Monetary donations to charities and funds are one of the best ways of helping the underprivileged. However, the best part about such donations is that these not just make you feel good about helping someone, but also provide you with tax deductions under section 80G (if donated to 80G certified trusts and funds).
The section 80G limit on tax deduction may be either 50 or 100% (with or without quantifying limit) depending upon the type of notified trust or fund.
- Poverty can lead to increase in crime rates
A country with high crime rates can be very dangerous for its citizens. Reports have stated that poverty is one the major causes of commiting crimes and it is often the children and adolescents that are at higher risks of getting influenced by it.
The NCRB’s 2015 report mentions that underprivileged children are increasingly taking part in crimes. They also estimated that out of total juvenile offenders, 55.6% of them came from the underprivileged sections with their family’s annual income being less than Rs 25,000.
- Poverty leads to lack of education
Education is one of the major sectors that plays a big role in the nation’s development. However, despite several governmental schemes, policies and laws, millions of children are still unable to receive basic education.
This does not just hinder their opportunity to lead a decent life but might also make the nation lose an opportunity to discover a sharp mind that can contribute a lot for the future of the country.
Serving the poor and needy through Narayan seva sansthan
Narayan Seva Sansthan is a globally recognised prestigious NGO that has been consistently working towards helping and empowering the weaker sections of the society.
The Sansthan’s motto of heal, enrich, and empower have helped millions of people in the country. Their hospitals have treatment and corrective surgeries for divyangs and other underprivileged people. They also make sure to take utmost care of their patients and their helpers (who assist the patient) by providing them with food (free of cost).
They even focus on after care for patients with corrective surgeries through physical rehabilitation which is done in their physiotherapy centres. At present, the sansthan has 23 centres for physiotherapy in India.
Another admiring fact about the sansthan is that they have a highly skilled team of prosthetics and orthotics doctors that build and customise artificial limbs for underprivileged people at free of cost. This noble seva is changing lives of many underprivileged individuals who require artificial limbs because prosthetic leg cost (India) otherwise is very expensive.
Apart from that, they also provide sevas like quality education for underprivileged and specially abled children, vocational and skill development training for underprivileged people, mass weddings for underprivileged adults and divyangs, residential school for children with visual and hearing impairment and so on.
To know more about the sansthan and their offerings, you can click here!
