By Aditya Surneni | Project Leader
At the cusp of a beautiful journey
The scene: Evening of 14th May, 9:00 PM, MAD’s national headquarters, Bangalore.This was a crucial day, a day when another journey was to commence. Amid chaos and commotion, amid the electricity in the air, the brand new fellowship website was unveiled. It had taken long days, endless nights, and countless meetings with high levels of enthusiasm across the cities. Around three thousand mobile phones would have beeped at the same time inviting fellowship applicants for 2014-2015, to join us in fulfilling our new vision – the vision to create an environment that fosters growth of our children, to take them under our care and see to it that they feel nothing short of a family.
This was just the beginning; the program directors were attending emails and calls explaining the projects, its goals, and structure, while all of us tried our best to comprehend first and then showcase the role each program played in shaping the life of a MAD child. The calm had passed and the storm began with teams reviewing hundreds of applications that poured in. The phrase ‘burning the midnight oil’ never suited better.
And all of this, for the five thousand toothy grins across the country.
The little voice of Hope…
Daylight was still faraway and but oh, did we see the glimpse of it! We received the news of two of our children, Nandhana and Sahana, from Vellore who got admitted to Vellore Institute of technology (VIT), one of the top technical institutes in India. Alexis got admitted to BSc Nursing at CMC, Vellore. Here is what our Propel volunteers say:
“Nandhana is amongst the toppers from her school, who could not do well in her boards due to some personal issues she was facing at the time. We saw the potential in her and did not want to leave no stone unturned in the process of getting her admitted to VIT. “ - Tuhin Tiwari, Sakshi Sinha (Propel Wingman, MAD). Running from pillar to post, they got the admission council to approve her fee waiver and all they want in return is to see her wear the light-blue tag (The VIT tag).
“We jumped in the middle of the road when Sahana got shortlisted to VIT, appearing among the toppers in her school. Most probably she will get a hundred percent scholarship to pursue her studies there.” – Rohit Sunkari, Pulakith Alla (Propel Wingman, MAD)
Such is the ripple of joy we see in these success stories. Tuhin tells us, “He knows what he wants and gets it done. Right now we are preparing him for the interview after which he will be admitted”, with paramount confidence while talking about Alexis, who recently got shortlisted to BSc nursing at CMC, Vellore. Just the thought that we could create an impact in a child’s life with such small acts demands us to go above and beyond what we are at this moment. This alone was a reminder of how much of a legacy our current fellows and volunteers are leaving behind and the extra hours we need to give in to bring in the new set of leaders to carry this forward.
With this new found energy the teams were on calls round the clock, conducting role-plays and numerous interviews, and if not given the best, our directors went talent hunting to source out the best from their cities. And finally we had a team in each city, a team which would create larger impact to many more Nandhanas, Sahanas and Alexis’s .
And we know we are halfway there…
We have our soldiers in place, can we win the battle? Only time is to tell. However, the story of Ahmed tells us to never stop believing in our children, our fellows, our volunteers and mostly in each one of us. Ahmed from the MAD chapter in Mysore was taken into our connect project a few years ago. Today he is off to Fox Valley Community College in United States of America with a fully paid scholarship. Right now our volunteers in Bangalore are working with him on his passport application. An ecstatic Ahmed tells us how happy he was. “I believe in the power of education”, he says. “I feel the education system in the country leaves a lot of scope for improvement.” A major in History, Economics and political science, he has chosen his early childhood education system to work on and impact for the better.
Well, do we have anything to say? The language fluency and clarity with which he spoke to us leave us grappling for words. A war has been won already.
*Names of children have been changed in adherence to Indian Child Welfare Committee regulations.
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