Social media is the most sought-after messaging application. It is also perhaps the most abused and misused platform. Especially in the wake of Covid-19 crisis, with false, unreliable information and news it caused panic.
Authorities took the matter seriously and warned of dire consequences to group admins which led to changed settings to curb fake messages.
There are thousands of chat groups for every whim and fancy with no seriousness accorded to them. However, here is one group that is bound to change your perception.
Brothers for Fun, a chat group setup by some of the members of Freemasons community in Telangana in the year 2014 has come with a novel idea.
The group comprising of 220 members from different walks of society initiated Project Bun, an initiative to distribute 500 buns and bananas to begin with for breakfast till May 3 to GHMC (Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation) sweepers and workers, migrant labourers, slum and street dwellers. Brothers for Fun, rechristened itself to ‘Brothers for Bun.’
The food is distributed every morning at Victory Playgound near Chaderghat in Hyderabad.
The response was overwhelming and scores of people have come forward to contribute to the cause, shared Madan Mohan, G Maddulete and D Ramchandram, assistant regional grand masters of Freemasons of Telangana.
In the next few days, the project aims to distribute over 20,000 buns and bananas.
Bread is a wholesome food and a good source of proteins, minerals and carbohydrates.
It is nutritious, easy to pack and distribute. It also has a long shelf life, shared Nitin Sinha, Suresh Khemani, Varinderpal, RajkumarMuppineni, Sagar Gala, Ramana Gudipati and Dr Giridhar of the group.
Srinivasan, who created the group in the year 2014, stated that he is not aware of any social media groups taking up service projects as big as what they have undertaken.
“Not only Freemasons, we have got positive response from non-members too who have generously contributed to Project Bun,” added P Veerabhadrudu, Praful Sahgal, Nitin Sinha, S P Chandu and G Ashok Kumar who oversee the distribution every day.
“We will increase the current number from 500 to 1,000 a day as the need goes up. We don’t even mind going beyond 20, 000 on the whole till the present lockdown ends,” they added.
Project Bun was born out of a problem the members came across during the distribution of cooked food to the poor and the needy during the lockdown period.
They observed that people were collecting more food. Enquiring about it, they came to know that people were keeping it for dinner as most of the NGOs and others served food during daytime.
There was scarce or no food at night due to the clampdown of the curfew. But, due to the summer heat most of the food they kept aside got spoilt and was unfit for consumption at dinnertime.
It forced the people to forgo their dinner and go to sleep on an empty stomach.
A random glance on a post by Hyderabad-based event management professional Neeraj Thakur about “Project Double Roti,” “we first came to know about Project Double Roti. Then we found on the net a 16-year-old Gurgaon student Taira Bhargava set in motion Project Bun, in the year 2019 itself informed D Ramchandram, who is also a member of Brothers for Fun.”
“We felt that bun was ideal as it was easy to store, had nutritional value and longer shelf-life,” he added.
The name of the group Bros for Fun was suddenly changed to ‘Brothers for Bun’ with a beautifully designed DP surprising the group members.
When the members enquired about it, the purpose was explained and it won the backing of numerous group members. Small promotional videos and posts on the subject helped raise contributions from Freemasons in Telangana.
Telangana has about 23 Freemasonic lodges (clubs) namely: Mayo, Morland, Ekram, Hyderabad 50, Italia Wiliams Manian, Rakshna Sena, Naoshir Chenoy, Secunderabad, Perfect, Abhayarudra, Keys No. 297, BML, Eagle, Model Lodge, Engineers, Daylight, Lodge Telangana, Lodge Juris, Lodge Lewis, Lodge Bankers, Neelagiri and Lodge AVM Lala.
“Non-Freemason members comprised of their friends, family members, relatives, business associates, etc.,” added Madan Mohan and Maddulete.
“It is very strange and unimaginable that a group of like-minded people who joined for a cause of fun can take up such a novel service project costing few lakhs. I got hooked by their video and instantly transferred some amount towards the same.” shared Vasantha from an NGO.