Pointers For New Volunteers !!!

Many of the youth today want to get involved in volunteer work. And it is a good thing as a lot can be achieved in society if volunteers lend a helping hand. We all may get emotional by seeing the plight of the destitute, and we also want to do something for them.

But we should also keep in mind that before going ahead, the momentum should build slowly so that it also thrives with time. I have been involved in volunteer work for more than an year and have interacted with dozens of volunteers, as I was also involved in co-ordination of the volunteer groups when I was in Gurgaon. With many of the new wanna be volunteers I have seen that initially they have a very high level of enthusiasm, but which starts fading away after 2-3 weeks of involvement. They keep getting stuck due to personal or office work. The motivation level fades away. Or they don't feel like coming for the visits etc.

And it can be due to many other factors too. But there are few things one should keep in mind before venturing into any kind of social work or volunteering, especially when one wants to work part-time like during the weekends. I would like to highlight them one by one:

1. Temptation of feel good factor: This is one of the most serious reasons which prevents the serious involvement of the wanna be volunteers. When one thinks about helping the poor or doing something for them, a "feel good" factor creeps in which is quite natural. But it shouldn't remain just a feeling. One may just do something once in a while to satisfy himself that he is doing something good, or may discuss lots of things with people. But someone needs to convert those thoughts into actions too. Just being associated with a volunteer group or NGO and doing something intermittently to feel that I am also a part of change may not actually help. One needs a reality check from time to time to see in what way one is contributing, what difference it is actually bringing in the lives of those for whom one has planned to devote his time and energy. Many of the volunteer groups get involved in more meetings, volunteer get-togethers, discussions and all but the end results become elusive. So in short one should avoid the temptation of feel good factor and actually DO SOMETHING.

2. Volunteering is not always something fashionable to do: Volunteering may not be something very fashionable to do. Sometimes it requires to do the menial tasks which normally no one would like to do but it needs to be get done. If you go inside a slum area and talk to the people there to spread awareness some of the people may treat you very roughly. One needs to get his hand dirty in doing the small tasks which may not always be liking of someone .And one should be prepared for it too. Moreover, being involved in publicity like writing newsletters, organizing exhibitions and all for fund raising, website design , strategy building and all are important, but one should also remember that all of these things revolve around a basic structure where something is actually being done for the poor and remaining of the things act as a support group.

If one is involved in any particular project then he should be ready to handle all sort of work which may involve field visits, asking for funds from people, writing articles, going to market to procure the items required etc. The most important thing is that wheels should keep rolling when one has given a start.

3. Volunteering will not be a smooth ride: One should also be cautious that being involved in volunteering will not be a smooth ride. Suppose you decide to teach a group of poor children. Initially you may get a good response from the group of children but soon you may see that their interest is wavering or they are not being as regular as you expected. So when this happens, new volunteers get frustrated and they tend to back off thinking that it is not worth the effort. But one should always keep in mind the ground realities and the conditions from where these people belong. It may take a long time to see any substantial results. Many of the new volunteers would come for 2-3 visits and will then question that they are not feeling that they are achieving anything or lack of satisfaction, etc. One needs to have a lots of patience to assess any results. Just thinking that visiting an NGO or slum area for 2-3 times and expecting results will only reduce the motivation. Bringing a change requires a struggle and one should be mentally prepared for it.

4. Volunteering requires a lot of commitment : Volunteering is no easy job especially when one wants to do it on a regular basis. If one wants to make volunteering a part of life, then it requires a lot of commitment to finding out time for it on a regular basis. Many a times one has to face a situation where one has to choose between going to a NGO on weekend or going for a movie with friends. If one really wants to devote time to help the needy then one also needs to prioritize things and should make sure that he can find out time for it. Especially like if you are involved with teaching children, then children may become very involved with you and may wait for you every weekend. But if you are able to go only intermittently then the children may lose trust. It takes time to build rapport with children or any other group of people for whom you want to work.

5. You need to find your motivation: You need to find out where exactly your motivation lies. If you are just inspired by seeing someone else doing something, the enthusiasm may soon wither off. You need to sit and analyze what you want to do and for which group of people. If you want to work for a special group of people you need to find out which will give you the most satisfaction. Some people want to work for orphans, some for old age people, some want to work with disabled, some want to work with mentally challenged, some want to work for the disabled, some want to work for preventing child labor, some want to work for women rights, some want to work for rural development, some want to work on health care for the poor etc. Question is what you want to work upon. You need to see where your motivation lies and the ways in which you can help.

I hope these points will give you few insights about factors associated with volunteering.

~~ Nishank

Email: onlynishank@gmail.com
Ph No.: +91-9910137929

After 4 daughters, the pressure to bear yet another child .....!

Hi,

During my weekly visit to Prempuri Basti in Gurgaon, I came across a family, where the woman already has 4 daughters, the eldest one around 7 years old and the youngest one about 5 months old. We few volunteers, usually 3-4 in number, go as a small team every Sunday to this slum area located in Sec-32, Jharsa, Gurgaon, where we are trying to work under a Community Empowerment Program.

Upon a brief interaction, the lady mentioned that her husband and her in-laws still want a male child. Her husband is a rickshaw-puller and the lady works as a household maid. The family is basically from Begusarai in Bihar, but has been in Gurgaon for about 12 years now. She also shared that before having her 4th daughter, she used to stay at her in-laws place, who also live in Gurgaon. But after not being able to give a son to the family, her in-laws had asked her to move out and stay separately with her husband and her daughters.

While we were discussing the matter with her, her husband had gone for work. We tried to ask her if we can intervene in some manner to talk with her husband. But the lady told, that she is not much hopeful in this aspect that her husband would be open to discussion. She was also concerned that taking care of 4 children is in itself a herculean task, and that too on a meager income. As per education, she has studied till class 5, but her husband is unable to read and write.

Now this becomes a classic case, where a woman does not wants to bear any more child, but has to deal with the pressure from her in-laws and her husband of giving them a son. Her husband also has 3 sisters, which might add to further desire of having a male child in the family. She was also worried that what if the 5th child is also a daughter. May be some more systematic intervention is required in terms of talking with her husband and her in-laws.

But when the preference for the male child runs so strongly in the family, I have apprehensions as what can be achieved through outside intervention.

May be some suggestions or advice can come handy, as what can be done to tackle this case.

Best regards,
Nishank
9910137929

Initiating a "Community Empowerment Program" at Prempuri Basti in Sector-32, Gurgaon

Hi,

I would like to share details about initiating a "Community Empowerment Program" at Prempuri Basti in Gurgaon.

Prempuri Basti is located in Sector-32, Gurgaon, which falls somewhere between Jharsa Chowk and Rajeev Chowk, very close to NH-8, and is in proximity to the offices located of various companies, viz. Ranbaxy, Punj Lloyd, Adidas, Ciena, etc.

To give a brief overview, we identified Prempuri around 2 months back, while exploring bastis from where children could come to our teaching center at Unnati. Since then, we had been visiting the basti on a regular basis. Initially, few of the families were reluctant to talk to us, and hence we conducted few weekly open air classroom sessions within the basti itself to gain the confidence of the parents there.

This basti is more than 20 years old consisting of approximately 100-120 families living in that area. There are few families who have been living for more than 15 years in that basti. The people living here are of varied occupations ranging from Rickshaw Pullers, Housekeeping Staffs, Daily Wage Laborers, Domestic Maids, Mistris (मिस्त्री), etc. During some general conversations with the folks there, we got to know that most of the families living there had earlier migrated from Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, etc., but now can be considered a stable population there.

The relative stability of the basti has some inherent advantages in terms of sustaining a long term involvement and working on different aspects of community empowerment ranging from education, health care, adult literacy, labor rights, livelihood generation/enhancement, spreading awareness about Govt. schemes, etc. This would basically involve not just interacting with the young kids there, but also reaching out to elder kids who may or may not go to schools, the elder folks in the community, the women folks there, etc.

So far, our Community Connect programs here in AID Gurgaon have essentially focused on interacting with parents of the kids who come to our teaching centers and the students who come under the RSEP program. However, under the Community Empowerment Program we would be making an effort to reach out to other target groups in the community. For example, it has been observed that the girls in the age group of 12-16 are rarely sent to school in such bastis, as they have to do the household work, look after their siblings and many a times also need to work as domestic help. Later on, it happens that they are married off soon by their parents even without achieving basic literacy. So we need to figure out as how we can reach out to such a target group.

We have refrained here from stating it as a "Community Intervention Program" (which could have been an alternate name), as the idea is not to go there with ready-made solutions and "intervene" in their way of life, but more of an effort to learn from them about the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives and help them out in community empowerment. Moreover, naming it a "project" in initial phases would be avoided, as this would entail having specific goals, deadlines, etc. The idea here is to spend a sizable time with the community, say 6 months, on a continuous basis and build a rapport with the folks there, along with trying to figure out micro-initiatives which can be sustained there.

Few of such possible micro-initiatives can be:

1) Communicating with the folks there about importance of savings and financial planning, especially for the future education of their children.
2) Trying to ensure that at least one person in every family knows to read a newspaper. This would also make them aware of the Govt. schemes on a regular basis. As an alternative, it can also be done as a team work, where few adult folks sit together and one of them reads out the news aloud for other folks.
3) Mentoring and providing guidance to the kids in the group of class 8-12 and helping them out with studies.
4) Forming adult literacy groups for the women folks in the basti.
5) Helping the community folks for their livelihood enhancement.
6) Discussing health issues with the community folks and whether they avail any facilities provided by the Govt.
7) Figuring out better solutions for the day-to-day challenges related to housing, drinking water, electricity, sanitation, etc.

These are just few of the pointers in terms of the different ways we can get involved there. Just to reiterate that the idea is not to go with ready-made solutions to the basti, but to first learn and understand the problems the people living there are facing.

In terms of the requirements of this program, we would be needing few volunteers who can be part of it on a regular basis for a good amount of time. One should bear in mind, that working with communities can be a painstakingly slow process, with sometimes no visible results even in months, especially because of our limited amount of time involvement as volunteers. Going there with fixed goals and deadlines may further add to frustrations and disillusionment.

However, such a program could be a great platform for volunteers who want to learn and get engaged with the communities, along with working on different aspects of community empowerment. It is crucial that the volunteers spend time with the community on a continuous basis to build rapport with the folks there over a period of time.

Hopefully, such a Community Empowerment Program would help in adding a different dimension to the kind of initiatives undertaken by AID Gurgaon.

Ideally, the model adopted for this program would essentially rely on continuous volunteer involvement, instead of raising funds and hiring people.

I have attached below few pics of the Prempuri Basti to give a rough idea.

If you would like to volunteer for this "Community Empowerment Program", or for any related queries, feel free to get in touch with me via phone/email.

Thanks and regards,
Nishank

Email: (onlynishank@gmail.com)

Mob No: 9910137929

Initiating a "Community Empowerment Program" at Prempuri Basti in Sector-32, Gurgaon

I would like to share details about initiating a "Community Empowerment Program" at Prempuri Basti in Gurgaon. 

Prempuri Basti is located in Sector-32, Gurgaon, which falls somewhere between Jharsa Chowk and Rajeev Chowk, very close to NH-8, and is in proximity to the offices located of various companies, viz. Ranbaxy, Punj Lloyd, Adidas, Ciena, etc.

To give a brief overview, we identified Prempuri around 2 months back, while exploring bastis from where children could come to our teaching center at Unnati. Since then, we had been visiting the basti on a regular basis. Initially, few of the families were reluctant to talk to us, and hence we conducted few weekly open air classroom sessions within the basti itself to gain the confidence of the parents there.

This basti is more than 20 years old consisting of approximately 100-120 families living in that area. There are few families who have been living  for more than 15 years in that basti. The people living here are of varied occupations ranging from Rickshaw Pullers, Housekeeping Staffs, Daily Wage Laborers, Domestic Maids, Mistris (मिस्त्री), etc. During some general conversations with the folks there, we got to know that most of the families living there had earlier migrated from Bihar, Jharkhand, Bengal, etc., but now can be considered a stable population there. 

The relative stability of the basti has some inherent advantages in terms of sustaining a long term involvement and working on different aspects of community empowerment ranging from education, health care, adult literacy, labor rights, livelihood generation/enhancement, spreading awareness about Govt. schemes, etc. This would basically involve not just interacting with the young kids there, but also reaching out to elder kids who may or may not go to schools, the elder folks in the community, the women folks there, etc.

So far, our Community Connect programs here in AID Gurgaon have essentially focused on interacting with parents of the kids who come to our teaching centers and the students who come under the RSEP program. However, under the Community Empowerment Program we would be making an effort to reach out to other target groups in the community. For example, it has been observed that the girls in the age group of 12-16 are rarely sent to school in such bastis, as they have to do the household work, look after their siblings and many a times also need to work as domestic help. Later on, it happens that they are married off soon by their parents even without achieving basic literacy. So we need to figure out as how we can reach out to such a target group.

We have refrained here from stating it as a "Community Intervention Program" (which could have been an alternate name), as the idea is not to go there with ready-made solutions and "intervene" in their way of life, but more of an effort to learn from them about the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives and help them out in community empowerment. Moreover, naming it a "project" in initial phases would be avoided, as this would entail having specific goals, deadlines, etc. The idea here is to spend a sizable time with the community, say 6 months, on a continuous basis and build a rapport with the folks there, along with trying to figure out micro-initiatives which can be sustained there.

Few of such possible micro-initiatives can be:

1) Communicating with the folks there about importance of savings and financial planning, especially for the future education of their
    children.
2) Trying to ensure that at least one person in every family knows to read a newspaper. This would also make them aware of the
    Govt. schemes on a regular basis. As an alternative, it can also be done as a team work, where few adult folks sit together and one
    of them reads out the news aloud for other folks.
3) Mentoring and providing guidance to the kids in the group of class 8-12 and helping them out with studies.
4) Forming adult literacy groups for the women folks in the basti.
5) Helping the community folks for their livelihood enhancement.
6) Discussing health issues with the community folks and whether they avail any facilities provided by the Govt.
7) Figuring out better solutions for the day-to-day challenges related to housing, drinking water, electricity, sanitation, etc.

These are just few of the pointers in terms of the different ways we can get involved there. Just to reiterate that the idea is not to go with ready-made solutions to the basti, but to first learn and understand the problems the people living there are facing.

In terms of the requirements of this program, we would be needing few volunteers who can be part of it on a regular basis for a good amount of time. One should bear in mind, that working with communities can be a painstakingly slow process, with sometimes no visible results even in months, especially because of our limited amount of time involvement as volunteers. Going there with fixed goals and deadlines may further add to frustrations and disillusionment.

However, such a program could be a great platform for volunteers who want to learn and get engaged with the communities, along with working on different aspects of community empowerment. It is crucial that the volunteers spend time with the community on a continuous basis to build rapport with the folks there over a period of time.

Hopefully, such a Community Empowerment Program would help in adding a different dimension to the kind of initiatives undertaken by AID Gurgaon.

Ideally, the model adopted for this program would essentially rely on continuous volunteer involvement, instead of raising funds and hiring people.    

I have attached below few pics of the Prempuri Basti to give a rough idea.

If you would like to volunteer for this "Community Empowerment Program", or for any related queries, feel free to get in touch with me via phone/email.

Thanks and regards,
Nishank (onlynishank@gmail.com)

A Must Watch Video

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Ideas/Suggestions for Community Connect !!!

Hi all,

I want to share few ideas/suggestions related to the Community Connect program which can add some value to our projects:

1) Detailed profiling of parents: While usually our emphasis is on tracking the progress of children, we should also spend some time on understanding the root causes behind the prevalent condition of the parents of the children. For this we would be gathering some information about the parents which will include their current income level, the reasons behind their migration of moving from a rural area to an urban area, the details about their wider family, the facilities they have or don't have in the villages, etc. to enhance our own learning and connecting with the bigger picture of poverty and issues faced by migrant population. Mansi, Dileep, Sneha and myself have prepared an exhaustive questionnaire to collect the related information. Mansi would be soon sharing the questionnaire with the group for a general feedback.

2) Programs related to Adult Literacy: In the long run we should also come up with some programs related to Adult Literacy. While we might be making our best efforts to work on the education of the children, it is equally imperative that we engage the parents who don't know to read and write to enhance their learning. One of the impediments we face that usually both the parents are busy with their work, and they many not deem important to learn alphabets because of their age. However, we should keep underscoring to them regarding the importance of learning to read and write and how this can help them in being more aware of their rights and that they won't be fooled by others who may try to take advantage of their illiteracy. For this, may be we can take help of some teacher who has experience in dealing with adult literacy programs. Along with this, we can also keep some small awareness talks in the basti itself from time to time related to health and hygiene, family planning, importance of balanced diets, their basic rights as migrant population, schemes of the Govt. for the poor, etc. If we are able to work on enhancing the knowledge level of the parents, then it would be a lot beneficial for the well-being of the children in the long run.

3) Raising the income level of the parents:While this could be a very challenging task, we should still keep brainstorming on how we can help in raising the income level of the parents. This can include the livelihood programs we have started with viz. making of spices, sewing classes, etc. We should also come up with solutions which can help in more skill based learning for the male members through some microfinance initiatives or skill building. Another aspect can be of encouraging them to save some money on a regular basis (may be as low as 100Rs per month) and if needed helping them in opening accounts in banks or post offices. If we come across cases, where the father of a child wastes excessive money on drinking, and the onus lies on the mother to sustain the family, then we can also help them to open a separate savings account. Any kind of initiatives helping in raising the overall income level of the parents will in turn benefit the children as the parents will be able to spend more on their education, nutrition and overall well-being.

4) Need of female volunteers for Community Connect: Though going inside the slum areas and bastis may be more challenging for the female volunteers (sorry no gender bias intended), to make the Community Connect program overall more effective, we would be needing more female volunteers in the group to come forward. During the visits, the female volunteers can discuss with the women folks gender specific issues ranging from facing domestic violence, health issues specific to women ( e.g. cases of anemia, osteoporosis, etc.), need of balanced diet and the general precautions in case of any pregnant women around, making the women folks aware about the adverse effects of malnutrition in young kids, how much is their say in family planning, how the women folks see the need of education for girl child, etc. The female volunteers can be of great help in tackling the gender specific issues under the Community Connect program.

5) Distributing hard copies of Community Connect pics and of Unnati/Disha: Though we keep capturing tonnes of snaps from time to time, usually the parents of the children don't have access to the pics of their children we take at Unnati/Disha, or any pics captured during Community Connect. We can get some selected pics printed from time to time and handover to the parents. We can also get some pics of the children along with their parents. This will help the families in adding something to their family album (if they keep one) and also the children can keep them as memories when they grow up.

6) Making a documentary related to Community Connect: If someone has a camcorder, then we can make about an hour long documentary, essentially filming in the bastis we visit and covering the lives of migrant population, their living conditions, the issues they face, etc. This can also include some interviews with few of the parents and some children. Later on, we can upload the documentary to youtube and will also help in publicity of AID Gurgaon along with educating the general public about the lives of slum dwellers.

If you have any more ideas/suggestions to make the Community Connect program a more effective one, then please feel free to share them.

Moreover, to expand the scope of the Community Connect program, we would be needing more volunteers, and the people who are interested should get in touch with Dileep (9310556612) or myself for this. We will also try to make the Community Connect program more effective at Prerna and Shiksharth.

Regards,
Nishank
+91-9910137929

Livelihood Programs @ Shiksharth

Shiksharth, a project in Kanhai Village, Gurgaon was initiated with the purpose to provide the right to education to the not so privileged ones in the village. Five months up and running now, we have developed trust and faith in the hearts of villagers! Nothing is more fulfilling than an experience when someone treats you as his/her confidante. It was overwhelming emotion for me to hear from the village women that they wanted to learn their names and wanted to be independent in their own right!


With these facts in the background, our team thought of promoting livelihood programs. So, here we go- first campaign was launched in January2010 and we called it -"Donate your Newspaper", we have great ideas around that. We collect newspapers from various sources and have conducted a dry run within the team to make bags out of them. The team is now working to market them using the samples. Once the orders are in, we plan to start the production in full swing!


Another program that we initiated in March 2010 is "Spice Making Unit". The first two lots of spices were ground with hand tools, however this week we purchased the grinders and are ready to roll the next lot of spices! The current variety of spices is limited to red chilly powder and turmeric powder. The others in pipeline would include- Mint masala, Jeera masala etc.


The above programs will employ the workforce from the village, primarily the women. The idea is to train them at the Shiksharth premises and provide them a means for their livelihood. We also plan to begin evening classes at a not so distant future where not just their kids but the mothers can also attain some level of literacy!



God willingly, the shine in the country will seep into the grass root levels that will take the country and its people to a better level of being and existence!