In Kerala, a help desk by the children for the children

Trained students of Kutty Desk interact with their peers, and parents, helping them keep pandemic blues at bay

Reaching out over phone to over 30,000 little-known peers locked up in homes during pandemic times is no child’s play. That is exactly what 245 trained students from Class VIII to Class XII did during the last academic year under Kutty Desk, a novel initiative of Our Responsibility to Children (ORC) under the Department of Women and Child Development. The ORC, which is meant for the early identification and prevention of issues faced by children, has been scaled up from 320 to 356 schools across the State from this year.