CHENNAI: At his recently-established office in St Thomas Mount, Joesh Noel Antony sipped coffee while embracing the picturesque view of the city the room afforded. Neither the sound of kids from the neighbourhood playing cricket afar nor the beating of winds on windowpanes intruded the community goals the 22-year-old man formulated in his mind. There is a lot to do, and he ought to travel long and wide: Yadhum Uyire, the community of like-minded philanthropists he established in 2018, is as young and kicking as the 300 or so volunteers it is constituted of.
Five years ago, on a cold, wintry night in the month of December, walking down the resigned aisle of the community hall of an orphanage in the hillock after playing Christmas songs for kids, Joesh felt a slight tickling on his fingers. Turning back, he encountered a kid looking straight into his eyes who showered appreciation for his performance.
“I’ll come back again to perform. Don’t worry. Let me go now,” Joesh said, politely. The assurance, however, wasn’t enough to convince the boy, who replied, “I know you won’t. A person like you who paid a visit here last month, before leaving, told me that he too will return. He still hasn’t.”
Deeply moved by the encounter, Antony did return. This time, however, he, along with seven of his friends, went to provide assistance to the orphanage home. “I would say it was an eye-opener. It was the starting-point for our philanthropic initiatives, and since then we have amplified our assistance to several other homes in the city,” sipping coffee, Joesh spills the backdrop of his venture.
Yadhum Uyire is fundamentally a community of philanthropists, he says. “Well, the basic intention behind it was to create a space where like-minded people can pitch in their philanthropic ideas. Later, a finance draft will be made and the volunteers themselves can pool in money. We hold meets every Saturday at our office. Anyone can join them and the ideas they pitch will be shortlisted,” he shares.Well, CSR funding? “Nay, not really,” he expressed his reservations on large-scale funding, pointing to the need for complete involvement of volunteers.
As months went by, the urge to contribute to society only intensified. Then the academic year commenced, and Joesh introduced his collegemates to the community. “My friends brought in volunteers from their respective colleges and, gradually, around 150 to 200 of them started gathering at the office every weekend. There was a time when we saw a footfall of 800 volunteers,” says Antony.
The seeds of benevolence Yadhum Uyire sowed did sprout when the alleged use of banned tobacco products and drugs by students of a government school in Pallavaram reduced substantially — a praiseworthy impact of their awareness campaigns.Apart from such campaigns, the volunteers regularly conduct career coaching sessions and classes on menstrual health. Recognising his efforts, the International UNICEF Council of France recently awarded an honorary doctorate to Joesh.