The crisis arising because of the corona lockdown has hit most of the migrant labourers and the poor. Despite all the measures taken by the government, there have been reports every day in which migrant labourers and urban poor are seen struggling for food and ration. People from all walks of life are coming forward to help them.

The Indian women’s hockey team has also come forward to help such people. The entire women’s hockey team, led by Captain Rani Rampal, is trying to raise funds through social media. For this, all the players of the women’s hockey team will give a fitness challenge to the people through social media, especially Twitter, and 10 new people will be tagged in that challenge. These people will be requested to complete the challenge and donate Rs 100 or more.

Every day each female player will give a new challenge, including exercises such as lunges, squats to Spider-Man pushups and Pogo hops. In this way, collection would be made and given to Uday Foundation, which provides ration and food to the poor. On the first day under the challenge, Rani Rampal and her team performed 500 skipping rope jumps whereas on the second day they offered pushups and dips challenges.

Talking about the campaign, Rani Rampal said: “In these days of lockdown, we are reading about a lot of people struggling for food in newspapers and social media. All this is very disturbing. So, we have decided to do something to help these people as a team.”

The money raised under this initiative will be used to provide basic requirements such as food, dry ration and medicines for the migrant labourers living in various places and sick people living in slums. In addition, essential items such as sanitizer and soap will also be provided to the people for cleanliness.

On the idea of the fitness challenge, she said: “All of us must stay at home because of lockdown and there is very little work to do. So, we thought that the online fitness challenge would be the best way to raise funds. This will also urge the people to be active and fit during the nationwide lockdown. Through this initiative, our goal is to raise enough money for the food of at least 1,000 families.”

The team’s vice-captain and goalkeeper Savita Punia is also excited about her captain’s campaign. She said: “We will give a new and fun fitness challenge every day that can be done by anyone. Whoever accepts this challenge can donate Rs 100 or more.”

Savita sincerely hopes that people will support her team in this noble cause. She said: “We know what happens in poverty and deprivation. Most of the players in the Indian women’s hockey team come from poor background. We have seen days when we had to struggle for food and other basic things. But today when we have overcome all that we want to ensure that the poor have access to essential items such as food and sanitary kits.”

People offering support

The Indian women’s hockey team is getting the wide support of ministers, leaders, actors, sportspersons and common people. Rani Rampal is also thanking every single donor.

The Union Sports Minister, Kiren Rijiju, said that whether inside or outside the field, our team has given us a chance to feel proud at all times. He also appealed to the people to participate in and cooperate with the fitness challenge while accepting the fitness challenge.

Former Indian hockey captain and legendary hockey player Dhanraj Pillai also lauded the initiative of Rani Rampal and her team. He wrote on Twitter that he was proud of the girls and would request all the international players that he had have played with, to participate in the campaign.

On the first day of the campaign, Rs 1.5 lakh was raised. Hockey India has also appealed to the people to participate in the campaign for the second day to meet the target of food ration for 1,000 families.