Educate 25000 Children through Volunteers in India

On March 18, I was in a room full of celebrities, volunteer heroes and organisations that engaged volunteers across the country. It was the grand finale of the iVolunteer Awards in Mumbai, India and Bhumi was one of the finalists in the Leader in Volunteer Engagement category. As the nine finalists for the award were being announced, my heart rate started rising; as the envelope was called for and the chief guest of the evening, actor Mr. Abhishek Bachchan was opening the envelope, my heart was nearly thudding in excitement. When he announced ‘and the winner is … Bhumi!’ I was flooded with so much emotion, words failed me in my acceptance speech on behalf of the organisation. 

It seems a long time ago, but it was just eight years back when my co-founders and I were taking baby steps to volunteering as a group that later became Bhumi. Our passion to do something for the country led us to education. Our first volunteering effort to teach in a children’s home was an epic failure!

A small break was created due to exams and vacation. When we approached the Secretary of the children’s home to restart the classes, we were asked to submit a report about how the children benefitted from our classes. This was an eye opener; we didn’t have an answer, and hence we were unable to resume our classes there. We learnt our most valuable lesson then; that we cannot waste the time of these children by doing ‘something’ just because we were volunteering.

It brought our dreams of changing the nation crashing down, but from there we had only one direction to go, up! It’s the sheer passion, determination of each of the hundreds of volunteers we have touched through Bhumi and people like you that has brought the organisation here. In 2013, we involved over 3,000 volunteers across the country. In 2014, we need to reach out to 10,000 young people and by 2020 we hope to engage 1,00,000 volunteers for India! Call me a dreamer but some day I see volunteerism becoming a national habit. Whether Bhumi will be the platform or a catalyst, only time will tell but I know for sure when we Change Today … we Change Tomorrow!

Links:

• Bhumi's founding story

Six years ago, a small thought to do something for this country led us to an orphanage, where we focused on the education of the country’s future. Since then our growth has been steady and a lot has changed within Bhumi itself.

We continue to grow beyond our own expectations as we continue our focus on strengthening and changing the fundamentals of the organisation as well. We have changed the name of three of our programmes to suit the needs and necessities of a pan-India organisation; the English programme is back to ‘Speak Out’, the mentorship programme has become ‘Lakshya’ and our talent development programme is now ‘Nakshatra’ – which were previously called Make a Difference, Dronacharya & Ekalavya and Siragugal respectively.

While many believe that Bhumi is changing the country by contributing to its children’s education, who will constitute the nation’s workforce in a few years, we have realised our greatest impact has already begun; it’s not just the children that we’re moulding, but also the socially conscious youth who are transforming into Changemakers.

This year, over 900 volunteers worked for the education and holistic development of approximately 3,250 children across 91 centres covering three states of the country.

We express our heartfelt gratitude to all our donors, partners and home caretakers for their continued support and to our children for their constant urge to learn more and more. We are indebted to each and every volunteer for his/her extensive, consistent and untiring efforts.

As we look back at the year that’s gone by, together we shall look forward to change today … change tomorrow. 

Links:

• Detailed Report