Well, if you are thinking that this blog is about TV serial Mukta Mukta, you are absolutely wrong! Hmmm... Before I started writing this, I questioned myself, why, what and all. One simple answer which my heart gave is 'Its my dream!'. 'Mukta', in Sanskrit means 'unveiling'. unveiling what? Hidden talent, treasure in the unreachable part of the society(Economically weaker section). Few months back or probably, an year back, when I discussed with Madhu, Amma Anna, Putani and all, I want to start a NGO which works at the grassroot level and want to establish my career in Non-profit side, I was convinced that this is not the age. Well, I'm a person who would want to enjoy life and at the same time, give back to society. This is the probable reason I see when my family could not bear seeing myself struggling in future. When I had been to interview with Agastya foundation, I was offered a job!! Delighted though, what made me not to venture into Non-profit is the salary it offers. At the age of 24, I was taking a very harsh decision. Then I questioned myself what is that I want in life. I have to make my family happy at the very first stage, ride bike/drive car, educate the uneducated, uplift the downtrodden.... List grew up... Then, I thought what is that it'll really motivate me to achieve bigger in life is that I've to keep my family happy. I decided, I've to continue with my current job and continue with my dream of giving back to society to nurture well!!!
Around 8 months back, if i'm correct, I happened to meet Shilpa who had similar dreams embedded in herself. Accidentally, I even wonder today, what made me tell her that I've such dreams and immediate reply from her was whatever I'm telling is the written statement of her dreams! She is one person who is so self-less! I adore her so much!!
Now coming back -
This is when again, 'my' dream became 'our' dream to make an impact in the society. Now that Shilpa is getting married in two months or so, she has made sure her dreams are turned into reality intact. We started discussing about starting an NGO which will really really make an impact at the grassroot level, then questioned ourselves - what is that we'll work on. Aastha, the group with which myself and Shilpa are associated currently, caters mainly the monetary responsibilities of the needy. But, we wanted different. Putani supported me a lot to achieve this to some extent when I was in Hyderabad. After going around the topics of the world's problem, we finalized on 'EDUCATION'. Now that we had the topic ready, we started discussing how to move forward and felt we should register our NGO so that in future, we'll not face any sort of problem. By this time, I was aware of 'Mukta foundation' started by kaushi's brother Sharada Prasad quite some time back. Motto with which they established was to streamline the Volunteers wherever they are in need and enable NGOs to function well by providing the basic - Human resource. Since, they had other priorities, they could not continue with this. Then we thought, we'll take this up to meet our Objective and this is how we got associated with Mukta.
I called a day when myself and Madhu went to lawyer to inquire about trusts and all, he expressed that he'll be part of Mukta. I was on cloud nine when I heard this from him. Eventhough, he would be there behind me in almost everything, these words made me more stronger!!!
Now that, we had identified 'Education' as our main area of concentration, we had three categories where we could venture in -
- Improve the quality of education
- Influence/Motivate children to study and reduce the drop-out rates
- Provide access to Education those who doesnt have!
Then we started discussing this with friends, Arvind was the first one to join us. Then on, Kiran, Sriranga, Sabaresh have joined us in making our dream into reality. After so much of discussion, we finalized that at the initial stages, we'll develop a model to improve the quality of education. As a team, we have come up with 'mentor-mentee' model wherein higher grade students would act as mentors for lower classes. (Say a class 5 student takes care of class 3, 2 or 1 students). We have identified - Gulbarga Colony slum school to run our pilot project. Also identified are the weekly tasks that will motivate the children to study and the details of the meeting and model @
Mukta Meeting MOM
Implementation Model
Details - Model discussions
In the first visit, we tried to get accustomed with the children and all the volunteers played games, made them paint, basically, made them enjoy. Pics are available at
Gulbarga Colony pics
Our next major tasks is to identify the list of mentors and weekly activities. Also, we have to explain our overall idea to teacher who is the most effective element in the model.
This is one dream which can change the lives of many children who are backbone to India.
Hope to scale Mukta to heights and make an impact in the lives of people.
Keeping 'our' dreams alive of Giving back to society intact,
All...ways yours...
Manu