Donated $300 for Children Needs Food
During school and college days most of our time is spent with our friends and the bond grows so strong that it seems to remain forever. But as time passes we get separated from each other because of different reasons and we hardly have time for friends. When I found this I found that our time is spent on work that we take up in different work places to improve our career and earnings. YUVA was that genuine and naïve attempt to keep the crowd together connected with a cause so that we friends can stay together, work together and create beautiful things to this world around us. Its been an amazing journey, few things have worked as I thought, many things haven't worked as planned. Though the hidden objective for which YUVA was formed hasn't actually fulfilled, I realized that for whatever time my crowd has spent together it has been able to give its best and made YUVA a live organization and realize its true responsibilities towards the society at large than just mere a platform for friends to stay connected.
As most our friends from colleges got engaged in their personal life the time that we spent on reaching out to the people in need from various walks of life through our own ways of planning, raising the funds for the same by going for door to door collection, to researching on the best product and services available in the open competitive market, working on integrating the best possible solution for the problems at a affordable price, to actually procuring it and transporting it to ground zero, making it work there, has helped us as an organization which is capable to work at the grassroot level with the beneficiaries themselves. Though the scale of reach was very little, the loop of bringing down workable solution to the ground and demonstrate its working with the budget and its lifespan on different projects has made us feel confident and compitent to take up any problem head on.
One of our major projects in these 10 years was serving food kits to the needy during the Corona times, we were able to reach out to close to 10000 families who were supported by crowdfunding through just online means, as it was a time of complete lockdown across the world. We could support them for a period of 50 days of an average family size of 4 people. The funds raised then through peer groups was in tune of Rs.5L.
Our first project too involved door to door collection and it was about bringing solar based solution as an alternative to the harmful kerosene lamps. Though the story would seem like a year back, but solar energy and energy efficient LED bulbs as a movement, was in a nascent stage in the year of 2012. It was then the organization was registered as YUVA. It was formed as streE ( Sustainable Technology and Renewable Energy for Earth ). The idea was to work on making energy clean, efficient, accessible and affordable. We realized that energy was not the only sector which needed attention but a whole lot of things connected for the survival of the poor or the lower middle class ranging from the basic commodity of food on plate, cloths to wear and a decent shelter to sleep under.
Though we observed that these commodities did not reach to the needed ones, our naïve and enthusiastic minds and hearts came across an experience that was totally opposite to what our thought process about the world that we wanted to work upon was, and this came from the four walls of the classrooms that taught us what was in books and the protective compound walls of our school and homes. For someone who is completely new to such a world would see it as a lollipop snatched away from the hands of a new born. It was a afternoon hot summer day, and we had just installed a grid based solar energy system, first of its kind that we were testing, that brought LED lights to 5 families and we invited to have lunch with Gram Panchayath Head. We reached a school that did not have any students or teachers but the rooms were used as a kitchen to cook food for the people who gathered. We realized that the rooms of the school were used to prepare Chicken and Rice to over 50 odd people and the same place was used to distribute liquor and CASH as their guarantee for VOTE. I usually defer to share stage with people who are against my thought process, at least then in school days, this incident was kinda eye opener. It questioned my core as to why this hard work when the very core of the system that we came out to correct was headed by people who did not really care for what the poor really needed. They exploited their idea of decent living that they never lived. Through these corrupt means they kept these blind in darkness, be it with kerosene lamps or rightful denial of the education that their children had the rights over, the health services that should have been saving the new born or the mother who needed the attention during the most difficult phase of life or the husband who had the responsibility to bring food on the plates of his family member or the emotion, that of going to sleep empty stomach with a thought that the money that he is going to get for pressing a button that merely had any impact on his routine life would bring food on his plate for the next one week, because these people live by the day. The helplessness of the one accepting the cash to vote on the hindsight which no one really bothered to think about pushed me to decide as to whom to share the stage with. This stance of denial has made YUVA an organization par comparison with any of the NGO's out there. Post that event, the first and foremost thing that I decided was to change the core of the system which the political system, that decides what we eat, wear, work and how we live. Since there wasn't any alternative system in place that could be pointed out towards, which people could see and experience first hand, we decided that our projects will be a more collective, organized and a demonstration of an alternative system of working that could replace the current political system in place in the years to come. Our resources, volunteers and reach was through a very tiny and close network of people, we made sure our projects never compromised on the way the people were reached up to. Be it the clean funding sources or people who got involved in executing the projects.
Years passed by, and now we have reached a point where we can deliver pretty much anything that this community in large needs, with solution that are par excellence. But the only bottleneck that any organization with clear intent faces, is that of availability of funds. Hence we decided to move from the convectional way of raising funds to a more organized way of raising funds where the donor would not donate for a particular project executing at a particular month of the year but would be committed for a year long engagement with the project with a decent monthly donation of a committed denomination ranging from Rs. 100, Rs. 200/-, Rs.500/- or Rs.1000/-. Okay, if you don't understand, lets do a little bit of math. Lets say we were able to get on board 1000 people from various walks of life, be it our friends who are now married and settled, working for different MNCs, or the retired personals, or philanthropist, or a college going student. 1000 such people who see that our ideas and our work is going to bring about a transformation in the society that we live in, we now have a steady income for the organization which is roughly Rs.1L per month considering Rs. 100/- by 1000 donors. With this steady income we do not have to now and again break our heads for the next 3 years as we have a committed set of 1000 people taking care of it. If your mind questions as to WHY SHOULD I CONTRIBUTE Rs.100/- ? NOTE - Then this is a must read and trust me it would be life transforming read. You wouldn't have read anything of this sort which puts perspective in so much detail yet briefly. Most of the intellectual mind would question as to what would I get back donating Rs.100/- of my hard earnings. There are few things which mere logic cannot answer. There has to be deep understanding of how life works and how we are all connected. Probably this attempt to explain how life worked in reverse way all these years and what we are intending to change in the most fundamental level of our society, should convince you as why you CAN and WILL pay Rs.100/- towards the projects of YUVA. These briefings have been broken down to 6 posts which largely explains in detail why #thefirst1000mavericks.
Far far away, behind the word mountains, far from the countries Vokalia and Consonantia, there live the blind texts.