mumbai archana rupwate a lawyer has always been passionate about fighting for human rights in a span of eight years rupwate began to advocate strongly for prisoner rights and managed to release around 200 of them on bail now in a hope to widen her horizon in criminal justice the 34yearold firstgeneration learner secured admission at a german university for masters with meagre resources at hand the daughter of a farmer is banking on crowdfunding to achieve her dreamwith limited funding and unviable education loan options many students such as rupwate are turning to crowdfunding platforms to fund their higher education the number has gone up in the pandemic as many families suffered financial setbacks and several scholarships discontinued youngsters are reaching out to strangers on online platforms to raise funds for their academic pursuitsrupwate a badlapur resident had offer letters from several universities in the uk but managed only about 1020 of the expenses as scholarships she settled for viadrina university germany as the fees were relatively less on her friends insistence she launched a campaign on ketto and managed to raise rs 17 lakh in eight days over 80 of her requirementcrowdfunding platform milaap hosted about 9200 fundraisers for educational causes in just about five months this year the number was around 11000 in the whole of 2020 and 7618 in 2019 next to medical emergencies education has been the second highest category for which campaigns are set up said anoj viswanathan cofounder and president of milaap education categories include funds raised by individuals for higher studies in india and abroad infrastructure of schools and supply of material to underprivileged children zaheer adenwala cofounder of ketto another platform said the number of campaigns for education has risen 100 from the previous financial year from 110 to 224recently music artist sumeet samos a jnu alumnus crowdfunded rs 37 lakh from 1575 supporters on milaap in less than a day towards his education at oxford samos success inspired pallabi sagar an ma social work student from tiss to raise rs 90000 to settle her tuition fee at the institute in mumbai i had to settle my dues and get my marksheets from the institute she said daughter of a daily wage worker from odisha pallabi now aspires to pursue her phd families and friends are also raising funds for students studying in indian institutions after losing an earning member of the family to covid campaigns are being launched for contributions as low as rs 20000kashmirs darakshan ali mother to an 11monthold secured admission at university of edinburgh for msc in advanced technology for financial computing abhishek vyas a graduate from national law university had an admission offer from cambridge university last year but had to decline due to lack of funds now he has pinned his hopes on crowdfunding