By Nupur Dogra:
Everyone in the world eats, drinks, sleeps and works for a survival. All of us run after high paying jobs and luxurious lifestyles. We all live a similar “ambitious money oriented lives”. But there are few who refuse to be a carbon copy of any other well-off humans. They want to make a difference to the society, to the way they and other people live. There are many who want to live for themselves or their loved ones. But, there are only few who, make a difference and live for the society or the underprivileged. Following is the story of one such organisation who pledges to make a difference to the society they live in.
MAD (Make A Difference) is a non-governmental voluntary organisation to help the less privileged children of our nation to have a better lifestyle. It was established in 2006 by few undergraduate students in the city of Cochin, India. Now it has extended its branches all over India by establishing its centres in Delhi, Chennai, Mangalore, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Thiruvananthapuram, Vellore, Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Nagpur and Gwalior. It is basically a youth volunteer network developed to help the needy children across various orphanages and slums.
Today in India, English has become a more than just a language, it has become a source for better lifestyles, a trait of a desired personality, a mode to survive and face the society. MAD realises this demand and trains its children in English language skills. The government schools fail to provide an education or skills which are at par with the private schools. Thus, MAD has taken this as a responsibility on them. They focus on the urban deprived kids who are mainly from orphanages, slums or poor shelter houses, who lack resources and opportunity due to financial or any other constraints. They have a five level English course, of 100 hours duration.
They also impart computer trainings to the children as operating a computer is a prerequisite in majority of the jobs in today’s time. Also they have a placements programme which helps the children to choose a career option by keeping them aware of all the options available to them. They currently have more than 1200 volunteers who cover over 3500 children. They have teachers to train the volunteers on how to teach and tackle the children. They specially focus on children who have studied till 10th or are still in their primary schools but in a different language. There are various camps and workshops organised for a better experience and many knowledgeable experiences such as visits to colleges, factories, hotels etc. are conducted.
Such organisations are blessings to our country. They prevent so many useful resources from getting wasted. When you don’t like something or some aspect of society, cribbing won’t help; it is your actions which can actually make a difference. They surely have made a difference to the society, to the people and to where they belong. Would you also make a difference?