Jeeva and Supankia got married on June 12, 2015, but their wedding was anything but the average summer celebration. The two believe strongly in gender equality and giving back to those in need, so they turned their wedding into a charity challenge.
The charity project is organized by the International Medical Health Organization Canada – it provides nutritional packages twice a day to malnutritioned, underweight pregnant women in war torn parts of Sri Lanka. Jeeva and Supanki love children, hoping to have their own someday, and they want all children to have a good life, regardless of socioeconomic conditions. The couple believes that malnutrition and infant mortality are two issues dear to their hearts that they can combat with a charitable donation set up for their wedding.
“We both enjoy doing things that we believe is meaningful and fulfilling to us. A wedding represents the first step in two lives coming together one that should be based on respect, equality, and love. We aim to share that belief throughout our entire wedding festivities.
One of our core beliefs is to encourage charity work wherever we can. This means encouraging charity work anytime, anywhere and at any occasion.”
Jeeva and Supanki also want to make their Tamil wedding informative by sharing detailed write-ups of the rituals and customs followed. Most importantly, the rituals will align with their beliefs on gender equality, and they will be translated into English instead of Sanskrit.
Jeeva and Supanki also answered some common questions in detail for us:
What’s your target goal? How much have you raised so far?
We hope to raise $2,500 within three months and we will match that amount, leading to a total of $5,000. We have already reached $1,970 in just over a month. Although we are also personally contributing, we hope that by getting others involved, that they too will be motivated to incorporate charity into their occasions.
How do your family and friends react to this idea?
The reaction was mixed, as this concept is fairly new, especially in the South Asian community. They had a million questions. “Why are you mixing charity into wedding?, Why are you asking everyone to donate?”. This is why we created an FAQ on our website to answer all of the questions that our circle of friends and family had. Some of our friends thought it might take the attention away from the couple or that the whole idea is too serious for a wedding. That’s why we decided to create a fun charity challenge, where people post up baby pictures of themselves after donating and encourage their friends to donate as well.
We wanted to break the stigma surrounding doing charity work during private occasions. In our opinion, it’s a great way to fundraise for a cause that’s close to you, as you can spread awareness about it in different ways during your special day. We aim to spread the message that we can incorporate charity work at any time of the year! This includes weddings, birthday parties, or any occasion! We also wanted to show that you can extend this to everyone, and not just your wedding guests as there’s no need to limit it.
What has been the best way to share this?
Social media has been a great way to promote our cause. We have mainly promoted this through Facebook and hope to extend this initiative to other mediums. We also had an opportunity to talk about this on Kiss 92.5FM. We are excited that the team of Big Fat Indian Wedding has decided to feature us.
Do you know what you’ll do for the bridal shower?
We hope to promote different ways of contributing to charity. We have brainstormed multiple initiatives including:
– Fundraising project to raise awareness about malnutrition: we want to emphasize that this fundraiser is open to everyone, and not just our wedding guests. We wanted to encourage couples to promote charitable activities beyond just their guests.
– Charitable Bridal Shower: The friends of the bride will secretly arrange a day where they do charitable activities together instead of the traditional bridal shower. The guests will be asked to bring nonmonetary donations to benefit local organizations.
– Wedding guests will be asked to bring in nonperishable items: This will be donated to a local food bank after the wedding. We spend so much money on arranging food for our wedding guests, but why not provide for the ones that need it as well? Getting our guests involved would promote awareness about poverty in Canada and the amazing work of food banks!
(Supanki also says that her friends are planning a secret bridal shower for her that will probably involve a fun volunteering-related event.)
We’re so impressed by Jeeva and Supanki’s charitable wedding idea, and we hope it inspired you too! The donations aren’t just limited to guests – you can donate to the good cause on their website, where you can also read more FAQs.