An evening with the blind boys orchestra

Agenda

·      I invited 10 blind boys to sing for us. 

·      I invited Anita from Ekansh ngo to help our kids interact with the blind boys by asking them questions on their favorite sport, actor, hobby…

·      She also taught our kids how to spell their names in sign language.

The good

·      Life is so busy, full of classes, social commitments. In spite of that several mothers made the effort to bring or send their kids for a charity event and we had a good turnout, 40 attendees (around 25 kids)

·      Kids hopefully learned that you can nurture your talent inspite of disabilities, where there is a will there is a way

·      Kids hopefully learned how difficult sign language is and how they take simple gifts for granted - like the gift to see and talk

The shockers

·      Inability of our kids to sit in one place for more than 15 minutes without looking bored and distracted, I pad culture and constantly “being on the go” with a packed schedule of classes has given them all attention deficit disorder

·      Inability to enjoy a good voice or good music, just wanting the latest/ cool Bollywood songs in order to have a good time

·      Inability of our kids to touch/ hug the blind boys while taking a picture, where is the empathy?

·      Inability to come up with enough questions to ask the blind boys, the genuine desire to get to know them better (must point out here that the girls were much kinder and more willing to interact than the boys, moms of boys need to work harder!)

·      When a sweet boy was asking simple questions like “what is your weight” the others made fun of him saying “he is calling THEM fat” is everything so trivial?  Do 9 year olds not have the maturity to be serious at times? In the US 9 year olds are helping their parents wash dishes, are we not treating our kids enough as adults?

So what is the solution? There isn’t one single solution. Key is to keep exposing them to variety of situations and use specific examples like today s event to teach them some values and keep reinforcing those examples time and again. Just like we plan classes for their physical wellness, we need to schedule time for their mental wellness which is going to be a serious issue for this coming gen !

Visit to Desai Eye Hospital in pune

My visit to HV Desai eye hospital in Pune today along with my son Vir

• ·      2500 surgeries per month, only 28% paid for by patients,
• ·      0.03% post surgery complications,
• ·      state of the art devices,
• ·      world class buildings,
• ·      recognized by global institutes as a center of excellence,
• ·      teaching school for post grad and PHD students,
• .    one of the largest eye banks
• ·      daily camps in remote places, patients carried by their buses for treatment all the way to Pune with free stay and food along with their treatment

and most importantly a team of passionate doctors  guided by a board of  wise corporate honchos – the perfect recipe for a charitable eye hospital.

Mr Nitin Desai the man and inspiration behind all this and his childhood friend Mr Pandya (the gentleman with no eyesight but a grand vision) are the most remarkably humble and loving souls (most achievers and philanthropists are humble, it reminds me “empty vessels make the loudest noise” – humility is almost as extinct as the dinosaurs these days)

Meeting such people energizes me, restores my faith in humanity and revives my optimism in my country.

But then what saddens me is the challenges they face- which seem so simple and easy to solve yet so insurmountable given the culture of our country

Need more paid surgeries but many opthals wont give referrals as they either don’t get commission or it cuts into their own hospitals

Need alliances with more hospitals so their students get more practical knowledge but alliances haven’t worked out due to hidden agendas of some hospitals and lack of quality hospitals in interiors

More than 2 years outstanding of government dues

But what Vir, my son and I learned in our visit is something priceless – no matter what the challenges are, when you are doing good, the “nasha” gives you the energy and optimism to do the best and be the best you can. 
Request all our readers to visit this hospital.

Thank you Sheetal Navani for organising this 

Thank you Mr Nitin Desai for inspiring us today !!!

Goal of this blog and website by the same name

So why am i writing this blog supported by a website by the same name ???

We often don't do, since we don't know what and how to do 

1) can we share stories of inspiring philantrophists, some famous, some common Indians like you and me and get inspired and inspire our children ? would love to hear what good work is being done. In my blog and website, I aspire to have a tab to share these stories in a fun and engaging manner

2) can we share stories of how charity can be used as a parenting tool to make our children more "grateful and humble". Can we share specifics - names of ngos and types of activities we can do with our children and time commitments and budgets of those activities ? In my blog and website, I aspire to have a database of ngos in various cities, activities and budgets and comments on what the experience was like, we can learn from each other

3) can we share stories of how charity can be a great employee engagement tool in various companies  to install a sense of "pride and belonging and bonding". In my blog and website, I aspire to share stories of what various companies are doing so we can replicate

4) if we want to donate for a special occasion, a birthday or just any day when we are feeling grateful and giving back, can we have a database of credible ngos and a laundry list of their financial needs sorted in an ascending or descending order of price? In my blog and website, I plan to publish such credible ngos and their financial needs starting from Rs 500 to 5 lakhs, every drop in the ocean counts!!

I like to keep things simple
too much data and too complex data is overwhelming
can we have a blog and website that "keeps it simple"
easy to read and navigate data and not too much data so that we can get what we are looking for quickly and focus on "execution" more than planning ?

the journey has begun, lets wait and watch how it unfolds, i am not afraid of failure and shutting this down if it doesn't work out but i hope it does and we are able to mobilise resources of millions of lucky indians to do good for the not so lucky indians by merely doing one thing "providing a simple and credible database to match the needs of needy with the resources of the kind....wish me luck :)
above is the best case scenario
Worst case scenario - no one really has the time or cares to read the blog and website but what a fantastic time my son (co-founder) Vir and I have had exploring and writing about these ngos, special friends we meet from these ngos, philanthropists, social events -  if this journey makes him a better human being - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Charity and Employee Engagement

At least two thirds of your life, emotions are tied to your job. Its important to like your company, respect your company. HR departments are working on "employee engagement" activities all the time. But Charity/ CSR is a fabulous way to engage employees.
We at Emcure, love planning these activities and love celebrating these events
1) Holi - we go to Navshitij, a home for intellectually disabled friends and play holi with them, they look forward to our visits every year with so much joy !
2) Ganesh festival - this is my favourite, our employees go to the ghats and request people not to throw the decorations and idols in the river, they help them put all this in the big earthen tanks and pots on the river banks. They help eco exist collect all the flowers and give to jail women who make natural colours. All Emcureans look forward to being part of the festivities, eating and bonding, wearing their beautiful emcure Tshirts, what memories !
3) Blood donation drive - I for one cannot see the sight of blood and we have over 300 Emcureans who donate pints of blood effortlessly and selflessly every year. It is so easy to give money, tough to give time and toughest to give a piece of yourself and yet so many do it so selflessly !
4) Clothes collection drive - every year we collect over 3000 clothes. Being a finance professional,  I am all about least investment and high ROI/ returns, if one poster on notice boards and few boxes keep for couple days at canteens can achieve this, why don't more companies do this ?
5) Diwali fair - we invite 2 ngos to display items made by their residents, diyas, paper bags, lanterns, candles, chocolates, snacks and all our employees get in the "giving" spirit of Diwali and buy generously
6) Drawing competition - we organise a drawing competition at Gurukul orphanage where our employees kids participate along with the orphans and the 12 best drawings get published in our CSR calendar that sits proudly on everybodys desk
In addition, we plant trees and run marathons (or at least a part of it!!) for good causes.
These we have been doing religiously for the last 5 years. We post this in our quarterly magazine that our employees can take home and share the pride with their families too.
What do your companies do that we can replicate ? any other fun activiies where we can bond as co - workers and do good at the same time ? we would love to learn from other companies and figure out what other activities can be part of our Emcure CSR- employee engagement  program, lets help each other!

it amazes me how often Charity is deemed as purely "selfless" when it actually you get so much more than what you give  - parenting tool, employee engagement - we always always get so much more than we give 

Charity and Parenting

It all started with the nagging feeling " how do I make my children more grateful for what they have"

Being your childs best friend and talking to him all the time helps but what is most effective are activities as actions speak so much louder than words. So it started with making them aware of the street beggars banging at our luxury car windows, giving them some money which as my wise husband rightly pointed out never goes to them but the cartel that runs this as a business. So we started carrying nutritious biscuits and handing biscuits to the street kids, the big smiles on their faces made my kids so happy and proud. As they grew older more was needed. We tried distributing pav vada on their birthday at a nearby slum, only to be mobbed which was definitely not a pleasant experience. Something more intimate, meaningful and structured was needed, but what ??

So I formed a small group of 25 kids, all our friends children, super privileged who needed a dose of gratitude and humility! Some of the fun activities we have done which are easy for you to replicate in your city
1) During Ganesh festival we bought eco friendly Ganeshas from Omkar, who lives in a nearby slum. All kids got together and painted and decorated the idols, Omkar was with us, talking about how long it takes to make the idol, helping them paint and we mothers taught them why use eco friendly idols
2) During Diwali, we got diyas and had an artist from the "warli" tribe teach them warli painting on the diyas and pots, a nice way for them to learn a dying art and support a tribe that needs to be conserved
3) During Christmas we invited 20 kids from a near by slum to our home, watched a puppet show with them and had Santa and our children hand them snacks and gifts, they all interacted and ate together, it has to be interactive and inclusive for it to be effective
4) During Holi, we went to a mentally disabled school to play holi with eco friendly colours
5) We had all our children listen to the local blind boys orchestra and hear the passion with which they sang and played their instruments
6) On Kargil day, we took them to the army disabled home to distribute sweets
7) We organised a fund raiser - a fashion show, dances and fun auction where parents and children participated to raise money for a local ngo
8) Another fun fundraiser - an art camp, where children learned various art forms(wine bags, trays, candles) and sold them to raise money for a local ngo

My goal with this blog is to post some good ngos (all audited and verified by me personally), their addresses and little needs where you can make your child contribute money from his piggy bank, places you can take your children and organise activities or call them home to conduct workshops in small groups. Lets all try to make our kids good human beings, socially sensitive and responsible and proud to be Indians !