We always talk about living in a better
society. But I often wondered, how and who was going to make the society a better
place and then, one day I came across Mahatma Gandhi’s words, “Be the change you want to see in the world”
and it was then and there that I decided that I will take the first step to
usher in the change that I wanted to see in the society. Well, the evil that i
was going to address was something that is omnipresent and that we have only
tried to neglect by closing our eyes towards what we come across in our daily
lives.
While travelling by road ,at the red light,
or on the street or on the railway platform ,we all find poor kids begging for
money. Most of us would give them a rupee or two and then hush them away. But
have we ever thought, if our money is actually
of any help to them in real sense and shouldn’t something be done so that they
too can stand up on their own feet. Thinking on these lines I realized that “It
was better to make individuals out of these kids who were capable of earning
their own bread rather than giving them some money” (kisi ko paise dene se
behatar hai ki use us kaabil bana do ki wo do waqt ki roti kama kar kha sake).
So I decided to do something to empower them ,so that they could lead a better
life. I did my research, talked to various people ,scoured the net and came to the conclusion that the most basic
thing by which I could help them was by
providing them with GOOD
EDUCATION. I decided to share this idea with my friend Mr. Anil
Kumar Saini. We both agreed to work on this idea and decided that first we should make a team
and carry out a detailed survey in a certain colony
comprising of lower middle class people. We zeroed in on the Shahbad Dairy slum
area near our college. Me and Anil along with Mr. Parvesh , Mr. Nishant, Ms.
Manisha went there and came to know that more than 95% of the children
living there were not going to school.
We were shocked to know that instead of going to school they were involved in rag picking. We talked to their parents and
told them that education was the most important thing for a child, that they
had no future and that they would find themselves in same economic situation
ten years hence if they continued to work as rag pickers. We
made them realize how important it was for them to send their children to school.
Consequently, they got ready to send their children to schools. We went to the
nearby government school talked to the school authorities and got 60 children admitted in the school under
the SSA(sarva shiksha abhiyaan) scheme.
Earlier before the start of the education campaign, one day when I was in my college, I had a discussion with
my friend Mr. Anil Kumar Saini on the issue of lack of proper clothing among
the poor people and we came up with the
idea to carry out a cloth donation drive. By doing that at least some of the people living on the streets
could get cloth to cover their body.
With the efforts of our family and friends we made it successful.
That
campaign gave me confidence and made me
realize that serving humanity is what
gives you the real happiness and peace.Then, came the flood disaster in
Uttarakhand , a lot of people needed help , and that was the time for us
to actively help our brothers and
sisters trapped in Uttrakhand in every possible way. So we have arranged the
required things such as water bottles, medicines, packed food from our colony
via the campaign and sent the same to Uttarakhand.
Having done all this, still, it seemed
,that I wasn’t doing enough and more could be done. The big problems of our
society are poverty and unemployment
and as I said earlier , since the only solution to all these issues is GOOD EDUCATION ,therefore
I felt something more needed to be done to improve the literacy rate. This
thought proved to be the turning point in our journey and we founded JUGNU- Let’s Make Everyone Shine,
a society that works for the right to education…….
Our NGO, has set up tuition camps in Bawana
and Geeta colony ,and aur team comprising of college students teaches the
underprivileged kids living there
They say the foundation of a state is the
education of its youth and upon this very foundation is built the glittering
superstructure of a nation’s peace and prosperity. We at Jugnu, are doing as
much as we can and would continue to fight the behemoth of illiteracy but I
hope in times to come there will be more jugnus to light up the darkness that
is threatening to engulf the prosperity of our country and give ourselves and
our future generation a nation, which the world would envy.
