SevaYatra - Experience
Salaam Balak Trust Service Project
The framework of this SevaYatra was to paint a mural with the kids at Salaam Baalak Trust's youth center in Chowpatty, as well as have other activities set up alongside the painting such as puzzles, games, and the kids’ regularly occurring Judo class. SBT prepped the wall, planned the mural, and designed a small curriculum around the musical notes that formed the mural image. There were approximately 60 street kids of varying ages that participated that day along with the volunteer group. The participants were from professional middle class families residing in Mumbai, participated in the painting as well as the Judo class the kids regularly have on Saturdays. There was a pizza lunch prior to the commencement of the painting. The kids went through a scrapbooking exercise and reflected upon their observations through the afternoon.
UT Austin AMBA SevaYatra in Bangalore
A group of 33 individuals including MBA students and faculty visited AMBA CEEIC for a half-day service project which included:
- Observations and Presentations by the youth at the Center as they showcased their skills
- The group was divided up into teams represented by UT students at youth at the center, they picked topics and took pictures incorporating either their environment or engaging in fun sporting activities. They collectively developed a PPT and shared it with the groups.
AMBA CEEICs are Learn and Earn programmes using the computer and a visual methodology of learning to enable adult intellectually challenged and circumstantially intellectually challenged with no capacity to go through formal education, to use the computer effectively. They bypass formal mainstream learning, slowly increasing the degree of difficulty and in about six months these adults can collectively outflow low skill back office work to include visual data entry, mail-merging, scanning and dispatch. Fractions of ability to meet the entire requirement…
This process has enabled 23 AMBA CEEICs in 18 cities and villages in India, in partnership with Tata Teleservices Pvt. Ltd, Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Pvt. Ltd., Special Olympics In India, Dinshaw Ice Cream, the Electronics Division Of Karnataka, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and Intel and brought in work to 8 centers to date enabling work to over 235 adults in these centers. After working in house for a period, 47 adults are now working directly in the mainstream pan India. By the end of 2010 AMBA would have ensured sustainable livelihood to 450 youngsters pan India. 40% of whom are young women.
In the last year the AMBA CEEIC concept has been used to economically empower and sustain drug addicts on the streets of Mumbai and more recently the long uphill journey in trying to empower 4600 widows with AIDs in Miraj covering the districts of Sangli, Sindudurga and Rathngiri. Like God send Dinshaw Ice Cream has shown interest in giving the first twenty women work and the hope of enabling work to another hundred women should we train them on the computer. Tata Business Support Services limited has started the process of setting up a BPO with 250 widows with Aids bringing in every requirement of work and infrastructure.
HP - Dream a Dream SevaYatra
Two days prior to the SevaYatra, Vishal Talreja, Founder of Dream a Dream came to HP to address the group of corporate volunteers. He provided an insight into his journey as a social entrepreneur as well as the importance of life skills for underpriviledged youth and children in India.
The SevaYatra itself began at 10am with the arrival of 39 children from the Excellent School, an NGO-run school that serves a predominantly Muslim, under-resourced locale. The HP volunteers planned the curriculum of the day with guidance from SevaYatra staff.
First, the kids were taken to the large Helios conference room where they were given name tags. A round of the name game ensued, which was followed by the kids breaking up into groups and circulating through two main activities; one, working with a paint program on a cluster of computers they had set up; and two, touring the various floors of the HP facility to engage with the staff at their stations and ask questions about what goes on there.
The students learned about the office culture, performance rating system, and the different was technology is employed to communicate with the staff. Following the tours, the students ate lunch in the cafeteria and then participated in an activity where they were asked to sketch their impressions of the day. HP distributed gifts and snack boxes, and sent the children on their way. This was followed by the SevaYatra reflection session.
