By Make A Difference:Â
23 cities. 23 different camps. All united by one heartfelt cause: empowering children at risk. The annual Dream Camp conducted across 23 Indian cities by volunteers of non-profit child development organization, Make A Difference (MAD), will be held in Delhi on 31st Jan, 1st and 2nd Feb.
Once a year, every MAD child is put through a Dream Camp experience. The Dream Camp is an inbound or outbound child-development programme that provides children with a holistic learning experience aimed at nurturing and empowering them to be more aware of themselves and their surroundings. Every child has dreams and aspirations. At Dream Camp, these dreams and aspirations are identified and worked upon, session by session. We believe every child deserves to dream, and dream big. And Dream Camp is the facilitator. The volunteers, who teach these children over the weekend, are closely involved in deciding the sessions for their children.
The reason it is named a Dream Camp is because each MAD volunteer believes that they can impact their children’s life and have the potential to make their dreams come true. In other words, they believe they’re the Dream Catchers for these children!
The Dream Camp, which is into its third year running, seeks to develop the soft skills and aptitude of the 500 odd children under the organization’s care through an interactive residential programme. The sessions planned for such camps include personality and soft skills development, career counselling, personalized mentoring and a series of motivational talks by eminent public personalities. The camps have grown in magnitude down the years; mainly because of the impact they create in uplifting child morale and empowering them to be better citizens in the future.
In the Dream Camp to be held at Delhi, a total of 110 kids and 60 youth volunteers under the organization’s umbrella will be taking part.
About MAD
Make A Difference (MAD) is a platform that empowers youth to make positive social impact in the lives of children at risk in orphanages, street shelters and poor homes.
Volunteer profiles range from teachers (who work with a class of ten children and act as role models), to fundraisers (who organize events that raise funds for children) to placement organisers (who conduct activities to broaden the career horizons of children). At present, nearly 2000 volunteers reach out to 5000 children living in shelter homes across 23 cities in India.
MAD is the winner of the Ashoka Staples Youth Social Entrepreneur Competition 2008, and was nominated as the best Medium Category NGO in the Indiya Shines initiative organized by GreatNonProfits.com in 2009. MAD is also a Noble Laureate of the Karamveer Puraskar awarded by ICongo and finds appreciation as a global fellow of YouthActionNet, Cordes Fellow 2010 and the winner of Dasra Peer Capital. MAD was further awarded the World Summit Youth Award last November and was named ‘Leader in Volunteer Engagement by iVolunteer.