VOLUNTEERING PROGRAMMES IN INDIA

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more”

- H. Jackson Brown Jr       

       

India is a country rich in culture and history. However, poverty and underdevelopment of some sections of the society have acted as harsh realities in our society. Thus, for us, as members of this society, it becomes our responsibility to take a step ahead through volunteering and work towards the welfare of the underprivileged sections of the society. 

There are numerous volunteering organizations who are eager to uplift the poor and the underprivileged and support them in whatever way they can. Lakshyam is one such non-profit organization that is keen to welcome enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers.

Lakshyam was founded in the year 2012 by a young social entrepreneur, Ms. Raashi Anand. Lakshyam aims to work for the holistic advancement of the underprivileged and implement effective and relicable models for community development. Lakshyam today, is spread across 19 centres in India and has impacted 20 states. It has further touched over 30,000 lives and directly benefitted them. 

Lakshyam offers a volunteering program where the volunteers can work at centres spread across 5 locations across India. The volunteers are offered a choice from a wide range of tasks- media and communications, performing arts, academics, indoor and outdoor sports, data management and research etc. These diverse programmes provide the volunteers to contribute in whatever way they can as their passion and dedication can bring a positive change in the society. 

Lakshyam provide the volunteers with programs like Butterfly, a child welfare program. Through this, Lakshyam promotes the human right i.e. basic education of every individual. The volunteers can teach various subjects as well as positive healthy habits of cleanliness, hygiene and discipline to the children involved in various professions like rag picking, begging etc. The volunteers can also take workshops of art and craft, music, dance forms, drama, calligraphy etc. 

A short film, Laal Seb was made by Lakshyam children living in the slums of Delhi. It involved the students of butterfly: child welfare and education into constructive learning through electronic mediums that enhanced their creativity and allowed them to learn basic nuances of filmmaking. 

Another major initiative is Lakshyam Toy Library which provides the underprivileged children what they are lacking- innocence and essence of childhood. Various toy libraries have been set up across India. The volunteers provide them with educational toys, games and books to help the children in their growth and development. 

Rooh- awakening women’s soul is also an initiative to erode all the misconceptions and presumptions associated with women. Here, the volunteers along with the renowned professionals provide women with professional and vocational skills thus assisting them in generating self- employment and a measure of income.  Volunteers also engage in enhancing the knowledge of women with regards to sanitation and menstrual hygiene. 

Apart from these, various volunteering programmes have also been organized by Lakshyam like fashion for cause, a one-of-its-kind fashion show for fund raising which brought together various corporates and celebrities. It aimed bringing fashion and disadvantaged sections of the society together. Furthermore, Lakshyam NGO offers an opportunity to be a part of the Earthbag build which is a green sustainable school building workshop and a volunteering opportunity in Delhi.

Hence, Lakshyam appeals everyone to make this place a better place to live by engaging in the volunteering program and ‘do good’ for the society.

Women & child development, NGO working for women empowerment, woman and child development

Women constitute around 48.5% of the total Indian population according to 2011 census. Women have been a part of society since ages but never got recognition at any point in time. Women in India have been living under a constant threat of “identity crisis”. Women face a number of challenges in terms of literacy, lack of resources, labor participation rate henceforth hindering their growth. Over the years, many NGOs in India have come up to help women and empower them by providing resources, alleviate poverty, enforce women’s rights. Therefore, making recognizable changes in women empowerment and leading to better growth.

One such significant work in the field of women and child development, women empowerment has been made by Lakshyam NGO. Established in the year 2012 to work solely for the betterment of society. Lakshyam entirely focuses to alter the lives of underprivileged strata of Indian society emphasizing on child and women development.  Initially, started as a vision of providing toys to street kids thereby evolving and today it has a presence across three countries, present in over seventeen Indian states and has uplifted lives of more than thirty thousand individuals.

Under the flagship, lakshyam has 2 very successful programs currently running namely lakshyam Rooh and Lakshyam butterfly while the former works for providing not only education but also job opportunities and also working for women’s menstrual health on the contrary works for mainly to provide education to children. Both the programs are unique, well laid as well as interlinked and are impacting the lives of women and children in a positive direction.  

Women in India have never been treated equally, in fact, they have been seen as only performing household chores, or rearing and bearing of children confiding them with only household work. Women in India face gender inequality and according to UNDPs gender inequality report of 2016 India was ranked 130 out of 146. The term Rooh literally means ‘Soul’ enforcing of Awaking Women’s Soul. Lakshyam strives to fill the void of inequality of women created by ages of oppression. Rooh works as three-tier program firstly, working to strengthen roots by providing them education, secondly, providing professional training of vocational like stitching and tailoring to provide women with self-employment thereby making them financially independent and finally providing them a stage to exhibit their professional skills.

37% of the Indian population is illiterate, one of the main cause of illiteracy is poverty forcing children to drop out of school and work drawing meager salaries. The term butterfly indicates wings, just as a butterfly flies with its wings lakshyam with its Butterfly: child welfare and education program it trying to provide children with wings to fly, elevate them out of poverty, protecting their basic human rights. Lakshyam has set up centers with over 100 children of diverse age groups are enrolled in Ghaziabad and Vasant Kunj centers respectively. The children are forced out of school, dropouts or either toy sellers, rag pickers, cobblers, even some of them never went to school. Lakshyam has assumed the role of enrolling these children at the centers and also aims to provide formal education or at least enroll them at open schools. In order to provide them education till 5^th standard as that is a requirement for all skills program. At the center's kids are taught subjects like Hindi, English, math’s computer, art, general knowledge and also tutoring them with manners of hygiene, menstrual hygiene, cleanliness as well as discipline. Apart from entirely academic teaching a number of other activities ranging from drawing competition, art, puppet show, food distribution drives, and dance competition amongst others also takes place at the lakshyam centers. Lakshyam through its program has an eccentric approach and come to touch the lives of many women and children thus, leading their overall development. 

Women and child development in India

India, a country where women have been given the status of goddesses has also been disappointing itself from centuries by never actually providing them an environment wherein they can flourish and grow as individuals. It is pretty sad that in a country as large and culturally rich as India, women are still a long way from being treated as equal citizens. Women live in constant fear of rape, trafficking, physical and sexual violence, denial of equal opportunities for education and work. Women's rights are extremely important if a country needs to move forward and prosper, and no matter how much India “shines,” the nation can go only so far if half its population is held back.

Our focus on women development forces us to trace the root problems which actually generated in our society years back. The dominance of men in our society never even considered women as people who deserved equal rights and opportunities. The over possessive nature of the men in our society made them to think of the women in their lives as obligations. The fact that the boys in the families were taught to provide safety to the women in their families rather than empowering the girls so that they are able to protect themselves hints at how regressive the approach went years back. These problems have continued over the years and crimes against women in India are not only a major concern but also a matter of shame. A country which boasts loudly about its rich cultures has one of the highest percentages of crimes against women such as rape, domestic violence, dowry and oppression in the world. Issues of safety, discrimination, lack of opportunities, hygiene and personal care, education and oppression have managed to survive over centuries.

 The good news is that we have increasingly become vocal about our problems and have started to counter them in our own ways. Being the youngest nation in the world with more than 65 percent of the population under the age of 30,we have now also started to understand the importance of nourishing our children by providing them better healthcare and education so that they build a better tomorrow for our country. It was in the year 2006 that the Department of Women and Child Development, Government of India, came into existence as a separate Ministry targeted at directly solving issues related to women and children in the country. Its aim has been to empower women to live with dignity and contribute as equal partners in development by providing an environment which is free from violence and discrimination. It also aims to nourish children by giving them opportunities to grow and develop in a safe and protective environment. The government in this way runs welfare, support services, trains for employment so the women are able to earn their own money making them independent, runs awareness campaigns about how and why education, cleanliness and healthcare are important rights of every women and child in the country. The government runs most of these campaigns and projects in association with one or the other NGO’s which are deeply engaged in making our society better than the previous day. The benefit with NGO’s is that they have a simpler constitution and issues are heard directly from the common people to help them to rise from the disparities of societal problems such as poverty, discrimination, unemployment and lack of education.

Talking about major NGO’s which are focused towards development and empowerment of women and children Lakshyam, Sayfty, Care and Sankalp have achieved tremendous milestones and successes in recent years. NGO’s like Lakshyam work on a step based approach starting with providing remedial education to children so that they see a brighter tomorrow than their parents and then moving towards exposing their mothers with professional training in stitching and tailoring to equip them with a platform where they can exhibit their products and earn money for themselves. Other NGO’s like sayfty and care are deeply focused towards spreading awareness among women on issues such as abuse and self-defense. They work towards providing women with affordable Health Care, jobs and safe environment to prosper in a world that is free from violence and discrimination which allows everybody a chance to grow irrespective of their gender. With increasing efforts of the government and various NGO’s in this direction, there is a huge need for us citizens to become a part of these campaigns in one way or the other because only an integrated effort can stop us from falling back in the evils of these already long lasted problems of gender inequality, discrimination and violence.