“Our fund drives have always been on WhatsApp, so family and friends of our fandom who got to know about it through our WhatsApp stories and donated. I would like to take this opportunity to thank a certain WhatsApp group who helped us;
Thadoi Lemba fans, thank you!”
We are back with another inspiring story for our “Your Stage” segment! With the ongoing pandemic and India being the worst-hit country due to the second wave, we are currently facing massive amounts of infected patients, countless deaths, shortage of oxygen cylinders, hospital beds, lack of preventive vaccines, and more. We have received help from many countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, United Arab Emirates, France, Ireland, Romania, Bahrain, Thailand, Taiwan, and South Korea.
Eric Nam, an American singer-songwriter of Korean descent, recently took to Twitter and shared his prayers for India’s Covid-19 crisis and even added links to where people can donate. This tweet was retweeted by Day 6′ Jae.
Eric Nam & Day 6’s Jae Extend Prayers & Support for India’s Covid-19 Crisis
It is widely known that EXO members have participated in many charity and volunteering activities, both as a group and as individuals, and among their many unknown, here are a few of the known instances – Chen has donated a sum of 5 million for a Catholic church charity event, Suho donated goods and for a briquette charity called Good Neighbors, donated an amount of 40 million, while Chanyeol, Kai and Chen delivered briquettes too. Just like them, many EXO-Ls all over the world have followed the boys’ footsteps to give to society.
In these challenging times, Manipur EXO-Ls (@exolmanipur) had come together with a fundraising project called “TOGETHER WE CANDY OVERCOME” on the occasion of EXO member Baekhyun’s birthday (May 6) and they collected a little over ₹1,00,000 in just 3 days.
They donated the said amount in the following ways:
- ₹90,000 is donated to “Mission Oxygen” started by ‘Democracy People Foundation’ to help hospitals across India get immediate access to Oxygen concentrators.
- ₹10,000 to CM Relief Fund as a part of “K-pop union project.
- The remaining is to be added to their group’s fund savings for future projects.
According to Anu Konsam, a representative of Manipur EXO-L, they are not just a team of one or two persons. There is every EXO-L from Manipur behind this. They have 3 WhatsApp groups & everyone is collectively involved in this.
“Whatever the project we have come up with, it is always the fruit of our collective discussion,” she said. “99 percent of our fandom are students. All of us coming together, pitching in our little savings to raise this much, we are quite overwhelmed. We have had various projects in the past, and this is our highest collection ever. Leaving the amount raised aside, it is the unity of Manipur EXO-L that we are proud of.”
Previously, they adopted a 9-year-old girl child, Aerisana, on Chen’s birthday and are helping her with her clothing, books, school supplies, etc. They raised over ₹65,000 for her. They will be sending her ₹2000 every month apart from her necessities. They pledged to watch her grow into a strong independent woman. They visit her every month and Aerisana is slowly warming up to them and is now quite comfortable with them. However, due to the pandemic, they are unable to visit her frequently.
“We started our group in 2017. And our first project was the Baekhyun Birthday project. We donated to an orphanage. From then, we never looked back. We took up many different projects these last five years, and we grew with each new project we completed. When we first started, we never thought we would come this far, as a team, together! But here we are, stronger and more united than ever.
Here in Manipur, loving K-pop idols is something which the general public love to ridicule and make fun of. There are instances people would bully K-pop fans on social media and what this journey has taught us is to be the bigger person.”
These past five years, they have participated in various social activities like – donating to animal shelters, old aged homes, making a healing room for differently-abled kids, gifting kids from orphan homes, distributing essentials to those in need, planting trees amongst others.
Upon asking about their inspiration, they said, “With so much negativity around us, we were inspired to create our own positive space by giving back to society. And you know what changed over the years? People have started realizing that there is so much more than just fangirling/fanboying. When we come up with any social activity, it’s always the Manipur EXO-L WhatsApp group members behind it. We would come up with various ideas and choose the best one!”
“To be honest, there might have been differences when we first started in 2017. It was just a bunch of clueless kids who love EXO. Today, we are one big family. We work together. We support the boys together. We EXO together.”
– Anu Konsam.
Manipur EXO-Ls are quite popular among many Indian K-Pop fan bases for doing some meaningful and notable things for society. Check them out here:
EXO’s 9th Anniversary:
View this post on Instagram
Celebrating the Birth of Chen’s Baby Girl:
View this post on Instagram
Distribution of Essentials:
View this post on Instagram
Lay Zhang’s Birthday:
Chen’s 25th Birthday:
Suho’s Birthday:
Recently, Manipur EXO-Ls also participated in a COVID-19 fund relief with other K-Pop fandoms based in Manipur. They helped a Youth Organization named Ya_All (@ya.all.northeast), who regularly conduct various social initiatives. It’s great to see how they all came together to help out during these dark times. This is a proud moment for K-Pop fans on the whole!
View this post on Instagram
This group consists of EXO-Ls from all eras. There are old/ grandma EXO-Ls who have supported EXO right from their debut & there are baby EXO-Ls who recently entered into the fandom.
Upon asking about the role EXO plays in their lives, Anu Konsam said, “To be honest, this is very subjective! I asked this in our WhatsApp groups. They ended up sending me essays….”Home,” “Inspiration,” “Motivation” “Happiness,” “Sweet Escape,” “Antidepressant” etc, these are a few word extracts.
You see, we have EXO-Ls of different ages, backgrounds, genders, but we are united! This is what EXO does to our lives! And this is why we can undertake projects successfully, every time!”
“WE ARE ONE! EXO SARANGHAJA!”
– Manipur EXO-L
Every time we reach out to different fandoms for doing such remarkable activities for society, we feel immense pride. It has been tough for so many people and even the smallest initiative taken up by people is changing lives out there. We pray for the betterment of our country and the world, and further, look forward to more similar activities by other fandoms as well.
We also hope you and your loved ones are staying safe. If you would like us to use our platform to amplify any news or request related to Covid-19, kindly tag our Instagram @namaste_hallyu and @namastehallyustudio. Here is a list of few verified organizations that are working to help those struggling in India:
Hemkunt Foundation (https://hemkuntfoundation.com/donate-now/)
Khalsa Aid India (https://www.khalsaaid.org/donate-india)
GiveIndia (https://covid.giveindia.org/healthcare-heroes/)
Zomato Feeding India (https://pages.razorpay.com/zfi-oxygen)
Uday Foundation (https://www.udayfoundation.org/covid-19-wellness-kits/)
The Indian Government has also set up a COVID-19 Central Helpline Number (India): 011-23978046
Email: ncov2019@gov.in
Want to be a part of ‘Your Stage’? Send us your/fandom stories and achievements to admin@namastehallyu.com with ‘Your Stage’ as the subject line.
Written by Lasya
This is the most beautiful thing I have ever read❤️ Makes me feel so happy and proud. I didn’t even realise tears rolling down my cheeks. Thank you so much for covering this❤️