Happy faces: Students of Odai Kuppam Chennai School flaunt the Deepavali gifts distributed by Chirag with the help of sponsors.

Chirag, a non-profit organisation that aims to bring the simple wishes of impoverished kids to reality, made the Deepavali celebrations of hundreds of such children across the city meaningful by distributing gifts of their choice.

“The spirit of Diwali is to spark up that little compassion within every one of us. What is common is the thought; what is not is the affordability. Chirag will help bring the people together to celebrate the essence of Diwali to its fullest,” said Srimathy Sridhar, founder-president of Chirag.

Every year, during Deepavali, the six-member all-women team that has the active support of nearly 20 volunteers, including men, works together with the sponsors such as companies and banks, and Chennai schools and orphanages to make a difference to the lives of disadvantage children.

This year, Chirag distributed gifts to nearly 3000 children across the city and its outskirts. The sponsors for this year were SCOPE, TCS, CTS, 4IApps Solutions, CISCO, Cholamandalam, TI Cycles and Royal Bank of Scotland.

The process of identifying the sponsors and schools begins a few months before the festival.

Fulfilling a wish: Students of the Palavakkam Chennai School,
who were the beneficiaries of Chirag, pose with their gifts.

The team members and volunteers visit the school and speak with every child to know what they want as a gift. “The main purpose of the programme is to fulfill the wish of every child. We do not want to dump something that is of no use or interest to the child. We want to give them what their parents can't afford,” says Srimathi.

After making the wish list of each child, Chirag identifies organisations that are willing to help out with this mission. Then they install a big terracotta diya within these identified organisations and hang out tags or send an excel sheet with the wishes of the children. Individuals who are interested in gifting a child, picks up a card, write his employee ID, project ID, buys a gift and places it near the diya. The employees also write a message to the child. A few days before Deepavali, these packages are sorted and distributed. Some of the sponsors also participate in the distribution of gifts.

Thank You cards written by the child who received the gift is also mailed to the sponsors.

Those wishing to be sponsors/volunteers in the programme can reach Chirag at chiragindia.org