For 29-year-old paan seller Ashok Kumar Behera, hardship was not just a phase — it was reality right from childhood. Today, those very struggles have moulded him into the unlikely face of one of Mayurbhanj’s most active volunteer groups, Helping Hand Mayurbhanj, a trust he founded in 2021 to support the poor and underprivileged.Ashok, known locally as Sambhu, grew up in Baripada’s ward no. 22. His father ran a modest betel shop, and most of the family’s limited income went to the treatment of Ashok’s mother, a heart patient who died in 2015. With three sisters and mounting medical expenses, he learnt early what deprivation felt like. “I didn’t want anyone else to suffer the way we did,” he says.That resolve led him and four friends to start Helping Hand Mayurbhanj on April 14, 2021, beginning with a simple jal chhatra — a free drinking water point. As word spread, youth groups and volunteers began joining the initiative. Today, the trust has over 500 active members in Mayurbhanj and nearly 5,000 contributors from across Odisha.Ashok still runs his small paan shop with his father but much of his time goes into coordinating a wide range of social service activities. His group arranges blood for poor patients at Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College and Hospital, often donating themselves. Every Tuesday, they provide free cooked meals to patient attendants. The group also raises small financial contributions for families struggling with medical expenses.Their work spans education, health, hunger relief and civic issues. Helping Hand Mayurbhanj provides study materials and free tuition to 30 underprivileged children, distributes leftover food from weddings to the poor, sets up summer water kiosks, conducts quarterly blood donation camps and offers warm clothes during winter. Members also flag local problems to the district administration and assist families who cannot afford last rites.Among their most compassionate interventions is the adoption of two destitute girls — a 15-year-old abandoned by her parents and a five-year-old child of a mentally ill woman. The trust supports their schooling and daily needs.“All of this is possible because of my friends and our volunteers,” Ashok says. “As long as I live, I will continue serving people.”
