Top 5 volunteer Organisations in India

What else do they have in mind when they hear the word India? A prestigious land with cultures ranging from mountains to barrens, a beautiful and colorful country.  But since time immemorial, poverty and hardship have also tagged along. What if they tell you there is more to traveling than just discovering new places and striking dreams off your bucket list? There are many travelers who try to give it back in a whole way by reaching out to orphanages, rehabilitate the refugees and conserve the wildlife.

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” – Hellen Keller.
There are organizations in India who enroll volunteers and who can work from office or can travel around to reach out to the interiors. In such organizations, you get the experience of work life, contribute towards building a better place and travel to fulfill your dreams.

The top 5 volunteer organizations in India are:

1.Khiddispore Red Light Area Community Programs in Kolkata:

This organization aims to give a better life to the sex workers of the area and takes care of their education and employment. The volunteers take English classes, teach communication and writing skills, enhance their crafts and create resource bank by selling the products.

2.Teach Tibetan  refugees in Dharamshala:

This organization aims at giving the Tibetan refugees a safe and secure home, rehabilitation and transition into Indian Community. They provide them with social services, courses and vocational training.

3.Lakshyam

Lakshyam has been battling since 2004. It expects to manufacture a safe and clean world for the underprivileged; giving them instruction, fundamental needs running from garments and nourishments to sheets and toys, human services programs and some more. It focuses on the ghetto territories of numerous states crosswise over India and furnish them with a steady, sound condition. It has three noteworthy projects among numerous others, to be specific, Lakshyam: Toy Library, Lakshyam's Butterfly Program and Lakshyam Rooh. Taking note of the smog filled air that we breathe in at the time of November-December in Delhi, or the gray air that we breathe in all the time, or the never ending fights for a timely supply of clean water; we should stop teaching the next generation tots that air and water are colorless. Funny, eh? Well it is not until you are in Delhi.

Lakshyam's Toy Library goes for circulating toys and books to the underprivileged kids gave by the ones who have it in wealth. Till now, Lakshyam has dispersed more than 2,00,000 toys and books the nation over. Putting up Facebook statuses, tweets and Instagram stories as a voice raised against the increasing unemployment; do you really expect Prakash Javadekar to take out time for you and read your stories? Or is life getting any easier as you continue to make fun of the unemployed B.tech graduates? Memes and stories won’t end anytime soon, but dreams and lives of thousands other unemployed youths get shattered while you scroll your feed.

Lakshyam's butterfly program gives healing training focuses to understudies, keeping in mind the end goal to fill the hole in the administration instruction framework. 

Lakshyam's Rooh program enthusiastically endeavors to instruct the ladies of India and enable them to believe in themselves and venture up the stone of quality and achievement.

Can Volunteer as:
i.    Media and interchanges
ii.    Administrative work and business improvement
iii.    Academics
iv.    Indoor and open sports
v.    Performing expressions
vi.    Data administration and research
vii.    Social business enterprise
viii.    Building and development
ix.    Co-curricular exercises

4.Ethical Volunteering:

There are currently heaps of approaches to get associated with global volunteering. You may take a hole year after school, or a profession brake from your activity, you may have been allowed to have a holiday or you may have resigned and be searching for new enterprises. Regardless of whether you have half a month or a couple of years there are currently heaps of associations that will enable you to locate a volunteer program.

5.Concern India Foundation:

Can organize arrangements in nearby NGOs for volunteers in fields, for example, instruction and network advancement; volunteers can likewise work with Concern India assisting with organization and raising money. Can organize arrangements in nearby NGOs for volunteers in fields, for example, instruction and network advancement; volunteers can likewise work with Concern India assisting with organization and raising money.

So however big your dreams are, however colorful your goals are and however places you want to visit, there is no bigger a happiness in lightening up a face and home with nothing more than your sheer lone work. Because as a volunteer, you can boast of yourself as the change that you want to bring.

Child Welfare in India

India with 1.21 billion people constitutes as the second most populous country in the world, while children represent 39% of total population of the country. The figures show that the larger number of about 29% constitutes children in the age between 0-5 years.

The future of India lies in its young population. But what is our country doing to improve the overall conditions of the children? Although, a very powerful resource of India is its population, this resource has not been explored to the fullest. Children in many areas do not get access to basic healthy living conditions. Education for many children is as good as a luxury. Few of them are not even treated well at home and most of them resort to acts of theft, begging or child labor.

 To improve the conditions of children there are various child welfare programmes like Mid-Day Meal Scheme, Pulse Polio Immunization Programme, Elimination of Child Labor, Integrated Child Development Services, etc. An NGO named Child Rights and You (CRY), works towards safeguarding the rights of children. 

Lakshyam has recognized the issues faced by children and stared a child welfare program named Butterfly- Child Welfare and Education. The wings of the butterfly symbolize freedom. Lakshyam aims to provide a holistic education which will result in an all round development of the children.  Due to a lack of formal education, children at Lakshyam are taught many subjects like Hindi, English, Computer Science and Math. Lakshyam’s remedial center provides free of cost tutorials for children who face issues in any subjects at school. Many recreational activities like dance competitions, painting, puppet shows, magic shows, etc are organised for the children. They organise computer learning classes by IIT students and also, summer camps for children.  The other program for children is Toy Library that aims to bring back the essence of childhood.  Many children have missed out on having a playful childhood and Lakshyam aims to fill that gap between a child and his childhood through this program. People donate toys and books to this Toy Library which is accessed by kids to play, read and have a fun time.

Lakshyam has changed and improved the lives of many children. Lakshyam aims to impact of the quality of the lives of as many children as possible. Lakshyam has also opened a computer center in the Mahilong village, Jharkhand. There are two computers at this center which will help in enhancing the teaching process in the village. There are around 260 children who are benefitting from the programs at Lakshyam including children from areas like Vasant Kunj, Kurukshetra and Ghaziabad.

Human Trafficking - Humans Are Not For Sale

INTRODUCTION 

The United Nations defines human trafficking as, 

“the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. 

It is estimated that twenty thousand people in India were victims of this heinous crime in the past year. It is a multi-billion business behind only drugs and arms trafficking. This sort of an illegal flesh trade is seen as a thriving and profitable business mainly because of its repetitive nature, wherein the humans can be bought and sold multiple times over and over. The advent of technology and advancements in the field of transportation and communication has made this illegal trade more appealing than ever. Masses of young children and women living in poverty and desperation can be lured away to a place thousands of miles away from their homes into bondage labor, sex trafficking etc. all without the hope of ever being rescued. Women and girls are kidnapped and trafficked all around the world for commercial sexual exploitation and forced marriages. Men and boys are kidnapped for bonded labor or to work as gigolos etc. 

CAUSES OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING 

One of the main causes of human trafficking in India is the abject poverty. Around thirty percent of the Indian population still lives in acute poverty. This creates an opportunity for unscrupulous elements in the society to procure cheap or free labor. Young able bodied unemployed men desperately looking for work often fall into the trap wherein someone whisks them away to a foreign land with no rights and no freedom where they are forced to work all day with no pay and little food. The reason for sex trafficking is growing due to the increasing demand for women. Since ancient times, women have been looked at a pretty little things decorated for and used to pleasure men. This was the practice during colonial times, where rich kings often kept concubines for their sexual pleasure. Now, this practice has evolved into forced prostitution or sex trafficking. 

Girls as young as ten, are snatched away from the loving comfort of their homes and hidden away inside the dark kothas in the dingy lanes of brothels. There they are made to service as many as twenty men a day without a penny for the rest of their lives. The declining sex ratio in India can also be seen as a cause for bride trafficking in India. This trade is thriving not only in rural areas but also in urban areas. This is a hindrance to women and child development in India. There is a price for each girl and her owner then makes her work endlessly to recover this supposed debt from them. In most cases these girls are scouted by neighbors and relatives posing as well wishers wanting to help the girl in finding work to earn money and unsuspecting family members duped by the prospects of extra cash are talked into handing over their custody to these criminals only to never see them again. 

PROTECTIVE MEASURES 

Through the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act (ITPA) 1956, the Indian government penalizes trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation, with a penalty of seven years to life. Section 366(A) and 372 of the Indian Penal Code, prohibits the kidnapping and selling of minors into prostitution respectively. Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) 2012, is a special law to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. On May 2013, a bill was passed in India, rendering human trafficking a criminal offence. This decision was made as a result of an international outcry against the brutal Delhi gang rape of 2012.

Lakshyam is taking several measures and working tirelessly towards imparting education to underprivileged girls in various communities across the country. It is also working towards the development of women and children by imparting skills to them and creating avenues for them to be self-reliant.