I was looking for an NGO to take up a teaching internship. Youth Empowerment Foundation (YEF) looked perfect for this, so I applied for the same. I was asked to make a group of all the volunteers who applied for this project. Later, I realised that YEF doesn’t work in Mumbai. But I didn’t want to lose this opportunity at all so I took an initiative to begin ‘Hamari Pathshala’ in Mumbai.
Following this, I started looking for the members who would become a part of my team. Finally, I found around 20 odd people from Mumbai. Looking at all the effort I was putting in to make this great project take shape, I was made the ‘PROJECT COORDINATOR ‘ for the city of Mumbai. Responsibility definitely grew.
I knew a place in Vile Parle where we could set up our ‘PATHSHALA’, but the problem was that all the volunteers were from different areas of Mumbai. Some were ready to travel, some were not. After the struggle of 2-3 days, I managed to fill my team with 15 members. The process of planning started from the very first day itself. I had many ideas to give this project a kick start. Finally, a day before our very first event, I, along with an event coordinator went to inspect the place. The difficulty came when the park authorities were not ready to give us permission for carrying out this project at their place.
After trying for about an hour, I took the supervisor’s number, went back hoping for a positive response from their side. Finally, the access was granted on the cost of changing our timings from 12.00 pm to 10.00 am.
Then came one of the most important days i.e January 20 2019, first event of YEF in Mumbai. As a project coordinator, it’s very difficult and important at the same time to carry out the event successfully.
Due to a change in timings overnight, people in the slums weren’t ready to send their kids to us so early in the morning. We waited for about half an hour. Extremely disappointed, we went back to remind people to send their children, and assured them of their safety.
At last, we managed to bring five kids from that particular area that we tapped. Stepping back into the park, the scene that I saw cannot be expressed in words. Twenty kids from some unknown slum were already sitting there voluntarily. They were so excited to play with us. The smile that came on the face of each one of us was just worth watching. The session started with the introduction of the little kids followed by games like ‘7 claps’, ‘ice-water’, and ‘passing the passer’, filling every heart with happiness and excitement.
We concluded the very great event by distribution of chocolates and a cheerful farewell to the kids, promising to see them next week with some nice activities. It was a remarkable day indeed.
Cheers to YEF!