Christmas is a festival of peace, kindness and joy that encompasses different communities and different sections of society, but some are deprived and a cement company here decided to address this discrepancy.

In keeping with the Yuletide spirit, Amrit Cement for the first time celebrated Christmas with the marginalised transgender community, specially-abled and underprivileged children of the city under its “Moi Hom Santa (I will be Santa)” initiative, as part of the digital campaign “Be a Santa” that was launched by the firm with the message of sharing happiness with the marginalised sections of society, a company release said on Thursday.

The campaign moved beyond the “poor and homeless” by visiting Shishu Sarothi, a children’s home here, bringing joy and happiness to the specially-abled children and their parents there. The children were thrilled to have a Santa Claus distributing chocolates and gifts. Some of them even danced to the songs of young musician Abhilash Choudhury.

Commenting on the initiative, Shishu Sarothi’s executive director, Ketaki Bordoloi, said, “We feel really great that Amrit Cement has initiated this campaign and approached us to celebrate Christmas with our specially-abled children. We thank them for this noble initiative and expect more such organisations to come forward.”

Kalyani Niwas children at a movie theatre in Guwahati. Picture by Ali Fauz Hassan

The team of Moi Hom Santa also invited Assam’s first and India’s third transgender judge Swati Bidhan Barua and members of the transgender community from various parts of Assam to celebrate Christmas.

The team spent quality time with the inmates of Kalyani Niwas, one of the prestigious child care institutes in the city, that houses underprivileged children from various backgrounds. Around 40 children were taken for a joy ride in Guwahati and enjoyed a special Christmas treat with the newly-released blockbuster Dabbang 3.

The campaign song has been sung by Joi Barua while celebrities like Ravi Sarma, Nishita Goswami, Sunita Kaushik and others extended their support to the initiative.