Street Cause, Hyderabad
Akhilesh Juka Reddy, a final-year engineering student in Srinidhi Engineering College, Hyderabad, set up Street Cause in April 2009. The organisation has seen a steep rise since then and presently has 500 working members apart from 2,000 donor members. “We take up any issue on the street. That’s why we named our organisation Street Cause,” says Reddy. The NGO has adopted Gracious Paradise, an orphanage. It conducts blood donation camps and holds classes for orphans during weekends.
Reddy drew inspiration from little incidents in life. Once his friend bought food and gave it to a beggar and her children, who were extremely hungry. “This and many such people have inspired me,” says Reddy.
The members hold DJ parties to raise funds. Companies like Penna Cements and Suvarnabhoomi Foundation also contribute. Their major source of funding though is the volunteers, who contribute `10 monthly.
The NGO has a proper structure — students are recruited to the various committees through tests, group discussions and elections. Once the seniors graduate, the juniors take over.
Street Cause was adjudged the Outstanding Organisation for Community Service in June 2010 by AP Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy. They are planning to expand to at least 30 colleges by next year and will also start a Hyderabad Youth Assembly in September where students will discuss how to achieve the Millennium Development Goals like eradicating poverty, reducing child mortality rates and fighting epidemics.
NARMY, Hyderabad
NARMY, which stands for ‘Nature’s Army’, is another student-run NGO in Hyderabad. Sai Kiran, a third-year BCom student at St Francis Xavier College in Hyderabad is its founder. He felt many students use Facebook to update insignificant things in life and hence decided to use the same for some thing constructive.
On Independence Day last year, NARMY began their activities by gathering Indian Flags that were strewn on the road. The NGO has four teams — Red for activities relating to health such as blood donation, Green for pro-environment activities such as planting saplings, Blue for providing aid to orphanages and Yellow for education-related activities such as campaign against child labour. NARMY has helped two school kids with their fees. The students work on Sundays and take a break during exams. They have 138 members.
Last Christmas, they distributed cakes to orphans and planted 250 saplings and cotton bags on World Environment Day. NARMY also provides saplings at your doorstep if you need it. It also conduct medical camps. The organisation raises funds by conducting various events where the entry fee is `50. “For each event we get a minimum of 30 participants and that will last a month,” Kiran says.
The NGO plans to set up an online database of blood donors, a helpline and also constitute a ‘purple team' that will fight against corruption.
— shruthi.hm@newindianexpress.com
Reclaim Our Beaches, Chennai
Set up a year-and-a-half ago, Reclaim Our Beaches (ROB) is a collective community of students who are working towards improving solid waste management in Chennai and also cleaning up the city’s beaches. “Our beaches are dirty and filthy. We are not just trying to clean trash from the beaches but deal with the issue of solid waste management in a more holistic way,” says Siddharth Hande, co-founder of ROB, who also finished his master’s in environment and sustainability from Monash University (Australia) last month.
The first eight months of ROB’s existence involved beach clean-ups, concerts, word-of-mouth publicity and social media networking to create more awareness. Presently ROB is focusing on waste audits, which includes documenting the trash found on beaches. The audits are underway near the Adyar River estuary. “After the audit is finished, we are setting up a garbage museum, which we will take to different schools and colleges to talk about the need for deeper questions on consumption, corporate accountability and government waste management in Chennai,” explains Hande. “We are also planning to take one type of trash (say thermocol) and trace and map its entire life cycle (from production to disposal) to expose the politics behind the particular piece of trash.”
ROB comprises four core members and has around 13 volunteers.
Yuva-Ignited minds, Bangalore
During a 10-hour long bus journey to Rajasthan, Yuva-Ignited minds was born after much altercation, debate and contemplation, when 12 boys decided it was time they made a difference to the world. “The good we do today will come tomorrow. It is important to give something back to the poor and the less privileged. People usually talk about making a change but nobody usually does anything. We, through Yuva are trying to create a consciousness in youth,” says 22-year-old Mitesh Bagercha, a BBM graduate from Center for Management Studies, Bangalore, who co-founded Yuva along with 11 of his collegemates on February 8, 2008.
The NGO had humble beginnings — Initially, its members contributed `500 each from their pocket money. Later they began to raise funds and got help from donors. Yuva has organised awareness programmes on health, animals, cleanliness and environment, also held workshops for poor kids and conducted various health camps. In eye camps, organised in collaboration with Project Drishti, more than 27,000 patients have been screened till now.
Yuva has 500 members from various colleges across Bangalore. “Our basic motto is to create awareness about social responsibility and get more youngsters into social projects,” says Manish Sankla, who graduated from CMS last year and works full-time at Yuva. “In the vast scheme of things, we have made a difference in the lives of over a lakh people. In future, we want to introduce a programme that will help youngsters to understand their responsibilities towards the society.”
— prerna.c@newindianexpress.com
Parinamika, Bangalore
Does social awareness feature in your daily chores? Maybe not, but for 19-year-old Adhok Shastry, college life activities have a different meaning as ‘regular’ has been replaced with ‘purposeful’.
While regular would entail ‘hanging out’ with friends, Shastry and his 21 comrades do find time for popular cafes, but these sessions are called ‘General Body Meetings’. This is because these youngsters have taken it upon themselves to empower people with knowledge about Right to Information (RTI) Act. “It’s not only about knowing the act but what it can be used for,” states Shastry, Parinamika’s founder and a law student at Christ University, Bangalore. “We are looking to create change.”
Initially, they started out as a branch of Kolkata-based Infocracy but after a brief period, created Parinamika. “We want the Union Human Resource Development ministry to include RTI awareness modules in Class 9 and 10,” says Shastry. The team is trying to drum up support for the same. “We hope to convince local legislators and famous personalities to sign our petition so as to add weight to our demands.”
They have also approached corporations to set up RTI workshops, tied up with local NGOs to reach out to the rural population and empower self help groups through RTI.
The team, though is determined to not limit themselves to workshops. They filed their first RTI to expose the sand mafia in Uttara Kannada district. “We are students from different colleges and regions, so any problem which requires attention in such areas are being looked into,” he says.
But has their aspirations to make the society more aware taken a toll on their education? Shastry disagrees and says that he has been doing well in his semester exams. “My parents were a little weary in the beginning, but now they are more supportive about the activities we are involved with,” he says.
— sharan@newindianexpress.com