Hi junta, Yesterday, in the Hyd PG meet , subbu mentioned an interesting thought. The best aspect of PG is getting so many educated, smart and young bunch of people together. Maybe, we could leverage this into getting something more done … s…
Hi junta,
Yesterday, in the Hyd PG meet , subbu mentioned an interesting thought. The best aspect of PG is getting so many educated, smart and young bunch of people together. Maybe, we could leverage this into getting something more done .. something useful ... a lot of us has got a lot of stuff from pg .. guidance .. bunch of gr8 friends .. useful info .. and the like. its payback time 😃
its unbelievable the number of people who actively participate in this forum. if even a fraction of them decide to give something back to society .. do some volunteer work .. that can make a big difference !
i know, we are all very busy people, so look at this as "strategic" volunteering. u dont HAVE to volunteer doing something u are not passionate about. also, volunteering definitely has a very nice effect on ur CV, its a great way of networking, and a fantastic way of getting to see the world at closer quarters.
so, to stop my rambling, are there others on this forum, who think we cud get on with some volunteer activity which cud make a difference ?
Please come up with ideas - what we could be doing , and whether you think u wud be interested :)
cheers
arbo
Very interesting post indeed. Very imaginative. Will surely post my ideas as soon as possible
I also agree with this - I am getting more and more enchanted with this forum although I havent made a "circle" of friends here. I am convinced this self-made group is a group of very like-minded,well-educated and informed young guys and I frankly believe that many of us are like me who want to get together and do something constructive but don't find anything worthwhile.
Moreover, I feel that it will be a lot better if people got organized city-wise and started off some activities. Hope more people come forward and we can make a humble start.
I think ideas about what activities can be done will come only after more ppl pitch in.
I have an idea: doing public plays on socially and nationally relevant topics like politics-crime nexus,corruption,politicians taking voters to be dumb fools,communal harmony,dowry etc etc
Excellent idea bgcx !!! Thats the kind of stuff people would love to do. if volunteering can be fun, i bet there wud be lots of enthu.
and yes, u are right, it has to be organized citywise.
so we got our first idea.
idea_count = 1;
Lets do some idea_count ++ :-)
i have a few ideas we may want to discuss - will post on them soon.
Finally the thread I've been waiting for! This idea has gone to and fro between the mods for almost a month now and we all decided for the GD/PIs to get over .. and start of the idea at a meet. The Hyd meet came in first and so subbu brought it up..
We guys really wanted to see how you would react to such a thought. Nice to see arbo staring the thread off.
The usual thoughts lying underneath:
1) Simply the most amazing set of people we have around here. Why not put it to good use. Plus its S-A-T-I-S-F-A-C-T-I-O-N guaranteed :D
2) Have to admit that almost everyone here has a hectic schedule .. but atleast the weekends are a bit easier on most people. Even if a group could get together every Sunday, the sheer number of people here can make a LOT of difference in the lives of the needy.
3) Meet new people 
.. C'mon where else are you gonna get to meet funky, groovy ( ) and the most happening set of people all aspiring to pick up an MBA degree
4) As arbo said, NETWORKING. Your chance to make new friends and expand your contacts. No better way than this :)
What I see .. err.. the future:
Sure we guys may start small. But my dream is that a couple of years down the line .. most of us guys would have completed our MBA , and we still would get a chance to meet people on Sundays - make a difference etc.
Wouldn't it be lovely if you could walk into any city in India with the knowledge that there are people who think like you. You could be in any city and on a given sunday could join people in serving the community.
What can we do ?
I haven't thought much about that , but the best idea would be to listen to the people around here to decide. No one can fix an agenda, do let your thoughts out. We have no benchmarks .. err... we never did ... This is our chance to make a huge difference in people's lives and it would not be possible without the support of the junta.
What do you people think ?
um..ok i gotta idea...since most of us belong to some or the other college..we cud perhaps set up kiosks at the college fests for karaoke and encourage donations for a fund set up to help somebody who needs it...something like that...not pretty concrete but hope its worth it.
Good idea PG!! as we r already having city-wise meetings in many places, we people could meet every weekend and do some social work. i dont think going to any orphanage will last for long.. maybe we can go to near by villages and educate the children there.. what say? sure it's a huge task to go outta city, but lets start off and it'll get better..
is there some place we can go where we can both learn somethings and help others in the meantime??? only then will people be interested in coming every week.. we dont want this thing to dwindle down to nothing in a few weeks, do we!!
so peeps, it's time we do something other than the usual quotidian stuff.. lets do something to make "India shine even brighter! " :grin:
aravind
this was on my agenda once i passed out from a bschool.i dont see how it wud hurt if i start a bit earlier 😃 .coming to the work that can be done in hyderabad,dr.reddy's foundation and byraju foundation(run by mrs.ramalinga raju i guess.but am not sure) are two institutes where we cud get some weekend voluntary work.there is alambana which is an offshoot of byraju foundation.contacting them would give us some info as to what kinda work we can do.as it is everywhere,the funda is not how much is to be done but how much can you do.so im sure we wudnt have problem getting some work.shall post info about alambana soon.but im not sure if i can be a part of this coz moi leaving for delhi injuly. 😞 hope we get to do it once before july . 😃 cheers.this forum rocks. :bigups:
PS-one idea i have is to collect old clothes from households and distribute it to the people in slums etc etc. other details can be worked out if the idea is okie
ok here goes my bit of idea.
i think .. or should i put it in this way .. i have always wanted to help teach other people .. i mean there are certain volunteer organisations like the cninmaya mission in mumbia at least that i know of.. i mena we could start a little society of our own and try helping other people with their work .. then these could be adults wanting to get educated .. or college kids with their 12th standards or scholl kids with their basics .. i think that this would require very little infrastructural base but a lot of efforts and time .. dont know .. but why dont all of you give it a thought.
and yes me living in mumbai have seen kids sitting under street lights at like 1.00 in the night studying ... it really touches your heart ... believe me.
Have you guys heard of Association for India's Development (AID) ?
I think a good idea would be to start a 'MBA community' chapter of AID. since this community chapter is not confined to a city, a community chapter would be a good idea. We have a houston chapter and the students of university of houston are members.
You can get in touch with them. that way, you can committ your time to projects that are waiting to be started and also help AID along the way.
Good Luck
Regards
Htown
terrific idea...would love to contribute in whatever way i can. i think we can start off wid something sm,all...like distributing old clothes to the needy in our respective cities...or maybe organizing a charity lunch...
cheers
kush
Great thread, thanks arbo for starting something so meaningful...
I currently work with this organization in Bangalore called the India Literacy Project, where we teach students of class X in a school in the Shivajinagar area (I guess the Bangalore junta would know this area). One thing it's made me realize, other than of course the joy of giving back, is that giving back is not that hard. The effort required per person is not really all that much, just about an hour or two twice a week or so. The reason I'm bringing this up is that I've met loads of people who genuinely want to contribute and give back to society but tend to put it off to later coz they feel that a lot of effort is involved. It's always "after the exams", "after I graduate", "after I get a job", "after this project release" and so on...but once you realize that even an hour or two a week can mean so much in someone's life, it's so much easier to actually go out and do something...
Quite a few good ideas have already been put up on this thread. Of course, different people have different interests and have different ways in which they would like to contribute. For instance, it could be teaching for me, it could be organizing clothes donation drives for someone else and it could be working with senior citizens for a third person. Considering the strength of future corporate citizens that we have on this forum (good point there PG, we're more a forum of future managers and in our greater role in business, we should be able to play a greater role in making a difference in society as well), we should really be able to do something. A few more ideas to consider...
1) Let's organize at the city level (and at an even higher level as time goes on). Under the aegis of this centralized organization (term used loosely here), we can have different people doing work in the area that interests them. This way we would be able to continually encourage and motivate each other, and have access to greater resources.
2) We could involve people we interact with, in offices and colleges. Surely in a land of a billion, lack of willing hands should not be a problem.
Of course we would need to start off small and build up to this. I suggest that we could identify specific projects that we feel we could contribute to, and put them up on the board. People interested could organize around those. Also, we could contact social organizations currently working in different areas to provide us with the help needed to start off or to identify projects to work on.
Regards,
Mansur
Great Thread Guys :)-----------It's definetly Payback Time
I guess the weekends should be OK with everyone. As suggested, we can start off in a small way and start gaining momentum after that with more and more people joining in. Mebbe as a start considering lieracy is such a major problem in India, we cud start teaching some needy children or even adults. I've tried that around 3 years back when a couple of freinds joined up and volunteered to teach some Orphans in a 'Boys Home' just near my place. Believe me the experience was really Satisfying. Not so much as the teaching but to see the smiles on these boys faces seeing that some people are making time for them is a memory I will never forget.
Well considering that we have so many like minded people as a part of this forum, it should not be that difficult to find volunteers and once we get started I'm pretty sure that many more will join in. Here's hoping for some more Ideas from the PG junta and together we may make a huge difference in People's lives.
Wayne
Hey guys,
Sweet... really nice to read these posts. I would just like to throw in some of my views( which is mostly a combo of many of the posts already here).
I am a member of the local Rotaract Club (n served as its secretary too last year) and what i've learnt is its fun to help other lesser privileged people and as someone has already said, its not difficult. We meet once a week and we do whatever we can. So its like, u have fun cos u catch up with ur pals and at the same time do something productive.
On some lines similar to this, im sure we cud start a society of some sort. But there are some obvious problems to this. People who meet today will probably not meet for the next two years cos they'll go to some B-school and be busy in their own stuff. Nevertheless, we shud have a society with which we can identify ourselves with and hopefully it can start with the major cities and slowly percolate to the smaller ones.
The best way to actually be of use is start of as volunteers to a bigger group as suggested earlier by someone, and once we know how to handle the ropes of doing stuff on our own, we can take up our own projects.
I will not say that we r gonna shake the system but yes,with time im sure we can make a difference. Hope we see something happening out of this thread,and if u guys need a volunteer, count me in ;)
Regards,
Garuda
(My pet project- education for children 😃 )
hii ppl
really awesome idea. count me in too. whatever is ur gameplan literacy, orphanage or anything else i have always have time to spare on weekends and ready to travel to any part of mumbai. just decide on what we are going to do.as a community we are very close knit and this is the least we can do for others. all other PGites please keep ur ideas pouring in .
Hi guys,
nice to see the philanthropic side of otherwise career oriented people.
education for child is my dream project too..
in a country with 55 % ppl below 25 yrs of age, education for children now becomes an important issue and it decides the destiny of our country. My addon is that we can try and get used books frm readers and set -up libraries for the poor. This is apart from teaching efforts.Forming city-wise chapters is a good idea.
bottomline,
I am in too...
Regd
-Mike
well for starters, volunteers can log onto giveindia.org and look for centres near thier place. even prayas as an orgnztn is doin gud work in delhi for unprvlgd children.it sure is some eXp to spend time with those kids n to get to know wat they want from life. u can go ahead n teach them some stuff, or u cud do individual counselling, trust me its a small thing for us, but not for them.
sid
my personal take on this is .. we shud try and make it a weekly meet .. identify 1 or 2 projects in 2 meets .. and get started. the best way to get moving is to get started it obviously has to be a citywise thingy, but for cities where getting a meet done cud be difficult .. say a smaller city .. individual members cud get in touch with other pgiites and thrash out what they cud do.
ok .. a few points which u may want to discuss in ur posts :
1. shud we start off with a fundraiser ?
2. how much time cud u guys spare every weekend ? be realistic :)
3. shud we go our own way, or shud we start off with a NGO for initial handholding ?
4. broadly speaking volunteer activities typically fall under one of the following categories :
a) city programs ( make hyd clean types )
b) literacy
c) tutoring and mentoring
d) blood banks/ hospitals
e) environment
f) senior citizens
g) children
h) food/shelter
just mentioning some of the categories to set ur thinking caps snug on ur heads 😃