The Doon School

Collective Efforts

We are delighted to share a blog written by student Tamish, from The Doon School, who is part of a team delivering a Global Goals project for the 2021-22 GSL Global Goals Competition.

Their project is among over 957 social action projects currently running as part of the GSL movement and we are excited to be supporting them to design and lead positive social change in their community!

We work very hard to reach at this level.

Project Summary

India has over 300,000 child beggars whom you see in tattered conditions on traffic junctions in our cities. There are about 19 million people in India who sleep hungry every day due to lack of sufficient income to feed themselves. Thousands of people died in India because of the recent catastrophic covid outbreak and so many families lost their earning members. Unfortunately, India has as many as 31 million jobless people who have no certain means of sustenance.

The inception of my initiative dates back when I was 10 years old. Fascinated by their philanthropy, I joined the Robinhood army, a group of youngsters who collected food from homes and distributed to pavement dwellers. Working with them had a deep impact on me and the seed of Collective Effort was sewn which has, now branched into a strong team of volunteers of 25 self-motivated individuals.

As an initiative to help underprivileged people overcome these problems we started Collective Efforts, a group of volunteers, with an aim to provide education and help them to give up begging. The group began to provide food and clothing to the needy. Gradually, we ventured to support them with gaining employment. The members of the group are working in various parts of the country helping children to get basic education and nutrition.

I believe there are so many people who need support to uplift themselves. Collective Efforts has a long-term vision to work for these people. To fund our campaign, we have started a social enterprise that works towards creating and promoting self employment for women. Hundreds of women are earning their livelihood by making cloth bags from upcycle clothes. There is a considerable range of bagging products which are very much in demand at retail shops. We sell these cloth bags to vegetable vendors, departmental stores, and hardware shops. In addition to donations, the social enterprise has given impetus and support to the sustenance of Collective Efforts.

To expand our social enterprise we collaborated with jaipuri samaan, an ecommerce business which displays and sells products like cushion covers and masks made by women beneficiaries through online and shop outlets.

Collective Efforts has made an impact on four categories of people:

  1. First, the child beggars who we educated to the level that they will be able to join the government schools from next academic year (IMPACTED 80 children)
  2. The second, is the villagers of different villages in Rajasthan, a state in India. We made them aware about the vaccination process and explained to them the importance of following covid protocols. During second wave of covid we distributed free masks, sanitizers, medicines to the needy. During covid, we also helped a new born baby whose mother had died. She was in a really critical condition and with help of our donation she was able to receive the necessary treatment and her life was saved. (IMPACTED 4000 people)
  3. Third, we have the underprivileged people of jaipur, rajasthan to whom we distribute approximately 2000 food packets each month (IMPACTED 30000 people)
  4. Last but not the least, we impacted the underprivileged women by providing them with employment through our social enterprise which helped them to procure their livelihood. (IMPACTED 200 women )

We impacted 40000 people.

We upcycle 15 tonnes of waste cloth every month.

Collective efforts cover six SDG goals:

  1. GOAL 1- NO POVERTY
  2. GOAL 2- ZERO HUNGER
  3. GOAL 4 – QUALITY EDUCATION
  4. GOAL 8- DECENT WORK AND ECONOMIC GROWTH
  5. GOAL 13- CLIMATIC ACTION
  6. GOAL 17- PARTNERSHIP FOR THE GOALS

The Journey

My participation in the GSL Global Goals Competition has helped me develop many valuable skills such as interpersonal skills, social skills, team building, organisation skills, planning and leading and turning my idea into reality. I have learned to work under deadlines. In fact, I am still learning and enhancing these skills. I have learned about myself that reflecting back on the project has given me significant insights into my work for the underprivileged. Reflection has helped me to improve my work and secure better results for the project. It has also allowed me to identify the challenges and how I can overcome them. I discovered that the biggest challenge was to procure funds for the project. Though the project has been self-sustaining with the help of profit earned through social enterprise, it required more finances to impact the larger community. Therefore, I started looking for more opportunities to expand the work of our social enterprise. My social and interpersonal skills helped me immensely.

The Next Chapter

I definitely recommend other people to get involved in similar projects. Getting involved in such projects results in better utilization of time. Most of the time, the students are found wasting their time. They are either sitting and gossiping or roaming the streets with their friends. This is a sheer wastage of time. These tasks do not bear any fruit to them. The power of the youth is also being wasted like this. It is better to do some fruitful tasks instead of wasting time. In this case, nothing can be better than doing social work or social services. Furthermore, social service gives satisfaction to students. The students feel that they have some role in society. They feel that the society needs them and they feel satisfied with it. When the students participate in social service, they will think that they are working for the benefit of the country. Last but not the least, the youth should participate in social service because it becomes a source of inspiration for them. Everyone needs some inspiration in their life. Inspiration is very necessary for life. As our world needs youth power, youth power can be inspired by social services. Social work fills the students with enthusiasm to work for the world and make it a better place for living.

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