Thank You!

An ex Bahrain resident's international plea to raise money for a charity drive has borne fruit. Akshatha Shetty and her friend Piyush Goswami had set up a target of $30,000 to be raised latest by today inorder to fund their Project Rest of my Family that highlights India's most important social issues. News of Bahrain had earlier reported about Bahrain born and raised Ms Shetty whose empathy and love for complete strangers were to be 'made an example'. The Indian School Bahrain alumni and her friend Mr Goswami gave up high paying jobs and promising careers in the corporate world for a 'life among the downtrodden, to understand their suffering, and to highlight their stories to the world and bring home hope'.

For the last two years, they have been traveling through rural India; dedicating their lives to a project they call Rest of my Family that highlights the country's most important social issues through Shetty's passion for writing and Goswami's interest in filmmaking and documentaries.

Ms Shetty had then appealed for financial support inorder to fulfil this selfless dream. They kicked off a crowdfunding campaign to help them start and sustain the first leg of this project. The pair today announced that they were able to raise more than the targetted amount and has expressed gratitiude to all well wishers and contributors. They have so far raised $31,576 (around BHD12,000) (at the time of publishing the story)

"We did it! We all did it!" said Ms Shetty on her Facebook page. "We couldn't have achieved this without the relentless support, kindness and love that all you brothers and sisters have shown us over the last two months. We thank you deeply for believing in our cause and journey. We couldn't have done this without you! Now, we can all set forth on a journey together of rediscovering our relationship with each other and the family at large; of bringing down the walls separating one individual from another. Thank you for bringing us to this point in our endeavour... Since, we reached the target on time, the campaign has now entered InDemand Mode which means Indiegogo will allow contributions to come in for a few more days."

Ms Shetty, left Bahrain in 2004 after completing school. She then joined the National Institute of Technology Karnataka from where she graduated as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer in 2008. She worked with Infosys as a Systems Engineer in Bangalore for two years from 2008. She then worked as a sub-editor/reporter at The New Indian Express, Bangalore from 2010 to 2013.

Mr Goswami graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and eventually decided to pursue documentary, photography and filmmaking.