Bring Holiday Cheer to the Children after the South India Flood Disaster

South India, especially Tamil Nadu and the Chennai region, was hit by record-breaking monsoon rains this November and December. More than 400 people died, and almost two million were forced to leave their homes as a result of the South India flood disaster. Even a week after the raining stopped some areas are still underwater.

Can you imagine what it feels like to be a child in Chennai now? After the rains have  washed your entire life away from under your feet, everything you ever knew? When grown ups couldn’t help you, being helpless themselves. What a traumatizing experience that must be.

It’s up to us now, to turn that trauma into a life-affirming warm lesson about the human spirit of solidarity.

Our friends the Travel Scientists are regulars to the beautiful Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, organizing events like the Rickshaw Challenge or India’s Cup. It has always been their priority to give back to the locals for their – truly wonderful – hospitality. Their rallies always involved some kind of charitable cause.

Now, that the need is truly dire, they decided to dedicate their whole event to helping the disaster-stricken Chennai. The locals and the authorities have been making superhuman efforts of evacuation, supply and relief. Ordinary people, celebrities, the military, volunteers from other places have been working day and night, trying to get and keep everyone safe.

And they did a heroic job of it. Now that the rains have finally stopped the gargantuan task of restoration is coming. This will continue to use all the resources they have for a long time. But what about the children? They are safe, but still under the shock of the disaster. With adults trying to get the world running again, helping them process this tragedy is way down on the list.

Help our friends at the Travel Scientists to make a difference there! They dedicate their entire event – the Rickshaw Challange Classic Run Carvane Humanitaire – to charity this year, with the sole purpose of helping the traumatized children. They need their toys, to go back to being children again, which they were so rudely ripped out of.

Strangers who care and help, will repair the childhood of an entire generation!