Summer Camp and Carnival !!!

These two events of ours, are by far the best activities that Just Change had done. During the course of these events I had many memories made. This event was inspiring and motivating and to tell you the least it brought the BEST out of me. We, Just Change, had put in everything to make these events successful. Thanks to the interns and their commitment and excellent capabilities, the event wouldn't have happened without their support and HARD WORK. 

SUMMER CAMP: 

                                As planned summer camp was held for a period of six weeks, during which the children were taught or trained in various fields such as dancing, computer literacy, Creative Arts and Mathematics and Spoken English. The interns as expected were very talented and gave their best in teaching the kids these activities. Kids were made to learn dances, which would be performed during the CARNIVAL( annual event of Just Change) along with that we also helped them make handicrafts which we sold at the CARNIVAL.

CARNIVAL:                                  

                       CARNIVAL! As the name suggests its celebration time! We at Just Change wanted to celebrate the lives of all children through this carnival. This was a platform for children to unleash their hidden talents. The purpose of this carnival  was to make the society aware of the presence of Just Change and make them realize that we are ever present to help any child in time of need. The Carnival  was held on 19th July 2009.

 In a nut shell the three most important objectives of the carnival were:
 

To make that day one of the most memorable days of every child that is present on that day.

To make witness youth, especially students, the need or necessity of Just Change.

To make the society aware of the existence of Just Change and involve them in the projects undertaken by Just Change.

 
Carnival was the biggest event that Just Change had organized so far. It was a very big learning experience for all the members of Just Change, the Children and also the Interns. We had games, dances, drama, Nukkads, Magicians, Jugglers, Jokers, RJ's and our own JUST CHANGE BAND performing for the children.  We had press as well as media coverage for the event. There was an half hour show on the Carnival in the telugu regional channel 'Vanitha' and also a news story on Ntv.

 

Juggler :)

Teddy

The Just Change Band,( Rohit, Clarance, Prateek & Tarun )

Mr. Srisailam Goud, MLA, Qutbullapur.

Children from grace performing on Vandemataram

Members and Interns of Just Change, People who made it happen.

                                        

Press Coverage:

Eenadu

Indian Express

Saakshi

Andhra Jyothi

Our first Internship- Our first series of events!

Our failed attempt at Loyola Academy lead us to ICFAI Tech. ICFAI is an engineering college located at Suchitra, Hyderabad. We went there to give a presentation on our NGO, impressed by our commitment and our plan for the children, the management and students council of ICFAI Tech offered us an internship of around 50 first year students. This was one of the BIGGEST moments of Just Change. This was indeed big for us. We were super excited about the offer. We never thought twice before accepting the offer. Though we were too young and inexperienced we didn't want to give it up. We took it up and this was one the best things that happened to Just Change. Through this internship we intended to do two events. One was the Summer Camp and the other was the Carnival. I would be dealing with both the events in detail in my upcoming blogs.

                                              The internship started off with an induction and training session. The session was spread over a period of three days. The induction was done in order to make aware the interns anything and everything about just change.  The basic purpose behind the training session was to inspire and motivate the interns.We did that with the help of few activities and some motivational videos. We also had invited Mr. Vinayak, Founder, Youth Assembly of India, to talk to the interns and motivate them. Mr. Vinayak was kind enough to conduct a competition  for the interns and also sponsor their prizes. 

As the last day of the training session, i.e. 5th June 2009, was 'World Environment Day' we wanted the interns to do an activity by which they would know how to work as a team and also support the cause of protecting our environment. This task was specifically designed with a purpose to help the interns work in a team and also help us identify the most passionate interns in the lot and also identify the talents and potential of the interns, so that these talents and potential can be best put to use during the course of internship.

      

Our first event- Christmas Party.

Christmas season is indeed one of the most happy and happening seasons for every Christian. Christmas is characterized with joy and happiness and most importantly the joy of sharing or giving. With this thought in mind we decided to have a Christmas Party organized for the Children who reside in the support shelters we are associated with.

                           We gathered a list of around 80 children for whom we would be organizing the party. The plan was simple, we wanted to buy gifts for the children and organize for a cultural show where children would be let to unleash their dancing or singing talents and then the cultural show would be followed by a dinner. The plan was simple until the FUNDS part came into picture. Our budget for the Party was 20000 and we had to start from the scratch. 

To raise funds we had a simple and effective plan. We decided to invite our friends and family for the party. And the Invites were sold for a basic price of 200. We told them that this 200 would be used to buy a gift for one child and also it would cover one child's and one invitee's dinner. We also sold invites at a premium, any person who wishes to pay more than 500 would get a complimentary 'Just Change' t-shirt for free. This marketing strategy of ours was very effective. We were able to sell around 50 passes in one week !!! The rest of the money we got from few philanthropists, who generously contributed in likes of 1000 and 2000. After hours of hardwork, countless kilometers of traveling in the sun, cold and rain and innumerable calling and messaging we reached our target. Our first achievement ! Felt very proud of the team. This achievement our ours boosted our confidence levels and made us believe that we are capable of doing Big things.

                                                       Having the money in hand, everything had to go smoothly thereafter. And it sure did. We managed to get an Old Age Home as the venue for the party. The idea was make both the age groups happy in each others presence. The most interesting aspect of the party was that 'IT WAS ORGANIZED BY YOUTH FOR THE CHILDREN IN THE PRESENCE OF REALLY OLD PEOPLE. ' It was one of the best parties that I have attended in my life and most of my team mates also share the same opinion. We had music, dances by children ( some kids are really good at this), we had a performance by the Santa himself :), we had gift giving sessions and some really fun filled games.         

Just Change- The Organisation.

Just Change is a dynamic youth established NGO formed by likeminded individuals.  The primary aim is to the build  a socially aware and self sustained community with the help of young people by encouraging them to lead and be the change (YOUTH EMPOWERMENT). It yearns to be the element of change in the society by educating the under privileged children and strongly believes that the future of the country lies in the well being of these children. Just Change is a community centric NGO, and all our projects are currently designed for the underprivileged children of Alwal. 
Role of Youth

 Just Change is committed to offer a platform of change by exchange of ideas, discussion, education and action. It believes in the concept of “STUDENT SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY”. The major function of Just Change is to involve youth in a large number in our activities and projects. We understand that youth can be change the country needs, and we would constructively work towards bringing this change.

 Aims

 ü It aims to focus on education.

ü It aims to eliminate child labor, child trafficking, and child abuse.

ü It aims to empower the youth through social welfare activities.

 Most important project of Just Change

 Project ONE:

 This is a simple yet effective project which aims at providing basic educational services to orphanages, government schools and hostels. This project not only aims at teaching children basic education but also help these children develop skills which would ensure them of growth and survive competition in this rapidly growing world. We intend to create an unconditional bond between our volunteers and children and by doing this we want to ensure that our volunteers turn out be the role models for these children. One of the significant motives behind this project is to bring down the attrition levels in these orphanages and government hostels. This project specially focuses on teaching subjects, Mathematics & English. As we are a community centric NGO we believe in moblising local resources for the implementaion of the project, we intend to mobilise students of the premier institutions of the local locality into the orphanages and government hostels of the same locality.

Implementation of the project:

 To start of with Just Change has associated itself with two Orphanages (Grace & Race) and one government hostel. There are about 120 children in these three places. This duration of the project would be equal to the duration of the academic year of the schools. We intended to invlove volunteers from Loyola Academy and ICFAI Tech and other engineering colleges in and around Alwal for this project.

An attempt to CHANGE !!

WHAT WHY WHEN WHERE WHO and HOW ?
The six W's and one H that needs to be answered with respect to any activity that we do or intend to do. So here is the background of Just Change with respect to the Six W's and one H.

                                                    It all started in an support shelter ( Orphanage, here in after will be referred as support shelter as I personally don't like the name orphanage!) thanks to one of my colleague,  Prabhu. Prabhu and I were sitting in our office canteen, having coffee and chatting on varied topics as usual. In due course of conversation, prabhu invited me for a dinner at one of the support shelters, which incidentally was located near my house. I never thought twice before saying yes. Having reached the support shelter in the night, I was very happy to see the children, that too so many (there were about 20). Surprisingly, I started interacting more with the management and caretakers of the support shelter than the children. During this interaction of mine I was made aware of the background the children,what they've been through.Their problems are  many and its magnitude is not small. They have suffered emotionally and physically. I never knew how I could help them, for that matter I never thought I SHOULD help them, until something happened. And that something was my conversation with the manager of the home. He told me that children in the home were struggling with studies and they are finding it difficult to pass in the examinations. Having understood the condition of these children and their background, it is obvious that they are going to struggle especially in an English medium school and so LIGHTING struck my mind (lol). I realized that the college where I graduated from was not far away from the support shelter. I gave it a thought and this thought started developing into an idea in my brain. I did not promise anything to the manager but I told him one thing "I will try doing something about it." Ever since then my brain never stopped thinking about it. The passion for doing something for these children started growing in me. I started talking about it to my close friends. Even now, I never thought of starting an NGO, all I wanted to do was develop some kind of a system in the college where I graduated, so that Students can go for a couple of hours everyday and teach the kids. I never thought I would get involved in this activity. I only wanted to start the system and then get back to my usual work and activities. 

                          Having this in mind I started talking to my juniors and sub juniors in college hoping that they would be  interested to go to the shelter and teach.  Many gave promising responses, in fact they did come along with me to teach for a COUPLE of days, but their promises and commitments were short lived. I was disappointed. I realized that I cannot expect people to work until I work for the same cause. Keeping this in mind and also the thought that I need to give my CAT exam that year, I quit my job. Primarily because of both the reasons. Now having quit the job, I started going to the support shelter everyday and used to take at least a couple of friends along. This is when one of the most SPECIAL moments of my life happened, I found a group of people who were extremely passionate about the idea and liked it and supported it wholeheartedly. These people were Siri Avalur, Lalitha Reddy, Alisha Rallan, Prashant Gurran and Daniel Ecka. Ever since then we worked together. After a couple of weeks of teaching, we realized that this is going to be of no use unless there is a well laid plan and system in place, because we would be able to teach the kids for a period of maximum 6 months to 1 year, but what after that? won't the kids go back to their normal situation again and unlearn everything. This thought scared us, and so we took one more step ahead, we decided to talk to the management of the college and request for a presentation to the students of various batches. We prepared a presentation for the students of Loyola Academy understanding their demographics, geographics and more importantly psychographics. We knew exactly how students would react to the plan or idea that we had proposed. The response was tremendous people were very excited about it and ready to do it, but then as expected it was short lived. We had a definite well laid plan, but still we failed ! What was lacking?? Commitment. 

                                                        Commitment was something that made us form JUST CHANGE. After hours of brain storming, debates and sleepless nights, JUST CHANGE was formed on Jan 29th 2009.  We realized the need of the organization now more than ever. We believed that to do something good there is no specific time or age required, you can do it anytime you wish to. This was OUR TIME. We all gave in our commitment towards  the organization, we promised our time and 100 percent effort whenever required. Prashant's house was our office. Our executive body consisted of Alisha Rallan as President, Daniel Ecka as Vice President, Me( Roy Joseph) as Secretary, Lalitha Reddy as Joint Secretary, Prashant Gurram as Treasurer, Siri Avalur and Sam T Mathews as Executive Members. Our aims, objectives and plan of action will be discussed in my next post :)

                Just Change team with the Children. ( Siri is missing)




       

                                                      JUST CHANGE- be the CHANGE.
                                       

                                       

Power of Talking !!

It is in deed one of my greatest aims in life.. To change the world by just TALKING!!!


Sometimes when we reflect upon our lives remembering those sweet talks to our girlfriends... dirty talks with our friends... pleasing talks with our parents... stupid talks with our teachers...... each talk expresses our feelings about something and more importantly our attitude towards the other person. And so, it will also cast an impression of our personality on the other person.
Now, having said that, what makes us talk? Is it just a simple urge to express feelings ? or Want of getting things done? or Want of creating an image of yourself in the other person's mind ?or is there more to it ?? Most of us talk when we want to express our feelings about something or when we want to get something done all for individual desires or needs!!
Note : Its your need or your desire.
Hmmm... Wondering if there could be any other reason y we should talk ? How about this ... TO SAVE THE WORLD !!


Yes it is true.... it is possible by just talking..... Talking is a very important tool that is used to learn or teach! Ever wondered that most of our knowledge comes from listening to others rather than reading books. More importantly, this way,  it stays in our memory for a long period too...and it is also the easiest way to learn !!!!! So now coming to the most important question... How do we save the world by just talking!?? well... to start off with you can read this blog and try to SYNC with my ideas or perceptions on certain issues that we all NEED to deal with, in order to LEAVE a better WORLD for our future generations :)