They need you!

So, vacations are here finally? With the advent of these short-lived holidays, begins the season of social networking! Suddenly your timeline experiences a downpour of Awwwwws, superlikes, status updates, check-in’s, hourly change of display pictures while testing of the camera in front of a mirror and memes! While all of this is definitely fun and funny, we could definitely make a lot more out of these days by clicking on links that tells you which profession you belong to according to your birth date or feeding our curiosity of who has viewed your profile in the last 48 hours by spamming their timelines!

Or we could also do something like volunteering/working for some really good NGO’s/non-profit organisations who are trying to bring about some change that we generally talk about being impossible in a country like ours, we could contribute our bit rather than blaming the government for being inefficient, we could help the less privileged by teaching them rather than throwing statistics about how illiterate our country is, we could plant a few trees rather than sharing photos demonstrating the need for a greener planet, we could enjoy the company of a stray animal rather than hurling stones at them.

 

Photo courtesy: Teach for India.

I know, some might find this as a value education lecture on an ideal student’s vacation, but sorry, this is not. I certainly feel that there are a lot of people out there who genuinely feel for the problems that we are facing, and who wish to be a part of the change process, this post is for them, and also for those who are not, but have taken the pains to read this post. This is for the 430 million and counting young population of our country, which consists of 430 million agents of change, and have the ability and the desire (well, in most cases) to live in a better country.

With this thought in mind I have, along with a friend of mine, Manasi Ghogare started a page called iShare on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ishare.mumbai) which is an attempt to bridge the gap between the youth and such organisations, by letting them know about the kind of work that these organisations do, and also post about the different volunteering/internship/job opportunities with them.

 

photo courtesy: Greenpeace India

I know not everyone wants to enter the cesspool and clean it, and its fine if you don’t want to. But all I’m saying is everyone has their own ways of helping such organisations, and we all should do our bit to not just show our support to these organisations, but at least the next time you want to blame others for the pollution, education inequality, child labour and other problems in our society, you make sure that you yourself have something to change about it.

And all it takes is a few hours a week, or a month, or even on weekends or even less. We should try and give as much to the society as much as we can, and as much as you expect from it in return. These organisations can use the most powerful capital that we have to offer them: Human capital! I would like to hereby make a humble request to all to support such organisations which work at the grassroot level in the best possible manner, and take out a few hours from their lives to do something that could benefit not just them, but you as well.

Having volunteered for quite a few organisations, I can assure you that the satisfaction that you get after doing something like this is much more than receiving compliments on your latest photo! Also do share your pictures and experiences if you’re working with any of these organisations, if nothing then you have my awwws, superlikes, shares and ❤ ❤ for sure! 😉

Thank you for reading. Happy sharing, happy caring.