how can I contribute to the society? How can I contribute in the development of India?

You think what you can do!

We the youths can and will bring a wave of revolution everywhere in this country.

I have a dream to see India as the most forward country in this world. I want India to become powerful and regain the pride and honor it once enjoyed in ancient times. India has to emerge as a strong nation and I don’t want a single youth to be unemployed.

There is a lot to be done in this country today. It is difficult to find plumbers, drivers, cooks and electricians in this country. There is a lot of demand for such people.

Our education system is so old-fashioned and wrong, that people remain unemployed after completing their studies. In our country, the ones who are uneducated find employment while 59% of the post graduates are unemployed. Though they studied so hard all these years and did their post graduation, they cannot find employment. The education should be job-oriented. Our education should be such that proper attention is given to honing the employment skills. If the teaching is job-friendly, then as soon as the students complete their education, they will get a job. We need to bring this change.

I request all the doctors to offer three free medical camps in a year. If you are a lawyer, I want you to handle three cases free of cost. Do this once in four months for people who are very poor and cannot afford to pay your fee.

Can you do this?

And all the school teachers should give free tuition to students who are weak in studies. Consider three students for a year. And if you are a student, create awareness about voting amongst people. Ask everyone to go and vote and to vote against corruption.

Thoughts of Sri Sri Ravishankar.

Holi Celebrations 2011 by Paritraan Team

The Journey of Paritraan…

Akhil Ranjan

Did you ever see a small child begging? Did you ever see an old man struggling? Did you ever see a blind person trying to cross the road? Did you ever see a person with disability? Remember how did you feel about it?

This is a part of our daily experiences. In our heart, we know, that this is not right. We all believe that something has to be done. We all have the urge to lay a helping hand to those in need, for we are humans – the most advanced creatures of this planet. Most of us, try to do our bit, in such situations. We help a blind man cross the road, we donate to NGOs. We donate in times of disasters like Tsunamis and Earthquakes. Paritraan is about all this and beyond. It takes things to yet another level. Paritraan is a Social Not-for-profit Organization.

The Journey of Paritraan has been amazing and it feels great to be a part of this caravan. We have written this article in FAQ format which makes this post more readable and comfortable.

Why the name Paritraan?
The word ‘Paritraan’ in Sanskrit, means ‘To bring relief to those in distress’. One of the aims of Paritraan is to reach out to underprivileged people and welcome them to our Society.

With so many NGOs working, why do we need Paritraan?
NGOs are doing a great job in India and throughout the world. Whether you talk about CRY, Help Age India, Teach for India, Uva-unstoppable, or even regional NGOs like Utthan, they all have contributed to the development of our nation and the world at large. However, we believe that just by donating money, old clothes and toys we cannot run away from our responsibilities. By donating time and effort we give our 100%.

Education is the single best development investment a country can make. It contributes to better health, higher incomes, and increased participation in community life. Too many of the world’s children are still out of school or receive spotty, sub-par educations. Each one of these children has dreams that may never be fulfilled, potential that may never be realized. By ensuring that every child has access to quality learning, we lay the foundation for growth, transformation, innovation, opportunity and equality.

We as Engineers, took it upon us to give back to the world the things we have got from it – Knowledge, Friends, Family, Happiness and Joy etc.

What is Paritraan trying to achieve?
Paritraan’s aims keeps evolving to keep pace with the changing times. However, the members of Paritraan have a few common goals, such as:

1. Paritraan aims to develop one million enlightened youth who will participate in the accelerated societal transformation of India.
2. The aim of the Paritraan is nothing but to spread the message of love and humanity. It’s about performing your basic duties as a human – to contribute in the development of the society and the people. To lend a helping hand to those who need it! It’s as simple as that.

What are the tasks carried out by Paritraan?
The Team Paritraan organizes trips to Government Schools, Blind Schools, Schools for the disabled, Orphanages etc. We try to use our engineering resources to solve their real-life problem. We focus specially on Digital/Computer Literacy and Personality Development. We also organized trips to medical colleges when they expressed their dreams to become Doctors.

The goal of Digital Literacy is to teach and assess basic computer concepts and skills so that people can use computer technology in everyday life to develop new social and economic opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities.

At Paritraan, we don’t just teach them syllabus. We try to come up with innovative methodologies to help students to harness their latent potential and channel their energies towards cultivation and sharpening of multiple dimensions of human competencies.

How many members are there in team Paritraan?
Paritraan has more than 50 members. Most of these members are students, alumni and faculty from BIT Mesra. To name a few – Zeeshan Zahid, Anjaneya Varshaneya, Shibani Rai, Asha Jyoti, Nirav Chadda, Shiv Kumar Jha, Ayush Kedia, Kumar Abhishek, Akash Sinha, Shraddha Chhabaria, Anubhav Agrawal, Abhishek Sadany, Manali Arora, Aditya Ranjan,Prasun Bhomik, Akhil Ranjan, Amritesh Kumar and last but the most important of all, our guide – Prof. Anup Kumar Keshri.
What do we gain from Paritraan?
Imagine walking down 800 acres of campus in BIT Mesra and suddenly a Gardner or a Peon or a Washer-man comes to you and says – “Bhaiya, aap ka bahut-bahut dhanyawaad. Aapne hum garib ke baccho ko sikhayaa. Ab wo school jaana chaahte hain. Wo seekhanaa chaahte hain. Bhagwaan tumhara bhalaa kare.” [Thank you very much. I know you teach our poor children. Now they want to go to school. They want to learn. May God bless you!]

Just imagine that situation! Feel the emotions. That is our reward and that is what we’ve gained from Paritraan. We have gained friends, we have gained families, we have helped to raise aware citizens, who may someday become Dhirubhai Ambani or Ratan Tata or Kiran Bedi or Dr Kalam!
How did Paritraan come into existence?
Paritraan is the best example of the power of co-creation. Like minded individuals came together to achieve a common goal, to convert a common ‘Dream’ into reality. It all began withVishal Gupta in his 2nd year of Engineering. He began by teaching under privileged children in his village, Saraipali in the Mahasamund District of Chhattisgarh. Slowly he expanded his efforts to schools in & around the BIT Mesra campus.

Vishal Gupta, better known as Aasthik [due to his famous blog], believes in the quote by Mahatma Gandhi – “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” As a true believer in the Goodness and Goodwill, he set out to achieve his dream of “Swarna Bharat” [Prosperous India]. We were drawn in by his dedication and commitment; and we together, i.e., Amritesh, Akhil and Vishal co-founded Paritraan. Against all odds, doubts and disbeliefs we successfully started a Social Revolution, which has been accelerated by our juniors, peers and seniors alike. We faced difficulties, we face our hurdles, but we looked at them as challenges and problems to be solved. After all we are Engineers… that’s what we do… that’s what we are the best at!

Conclusion:

Even an animal finds its food, sleeps, drinks and lives life for itself; if there is one thing that distinguishes them, from us is the ability for live for others.

So, we the Paritraan team would like to hear from you if you have any idea that can be incorporated in our mission to improve it. You can participate in this holy mission too. If you want to really contribute something for the society, please contact us and join us in taking this mission to a newer and higher dimension where it will prove to be a factor affecting life of many people and will be a concrete step towards the development of a civilised and educated society.

You can send your feedback, appreciation, comments and constructive criticisms at ourOfficial Facebook Page – Paritraan.

When Engineers decided to engineer Doctors for the future...

When I started Paritraan – A social service organization, I was alone. Today, Paritraan has over 50 members spread across India, who teach thousands of underprivileged children, the disabled and the old. 

When I talked about Social service, most of my friends thought that this was all a waste of time. But Robert Schuller’s, ‘Success is never ending and failure is never final’ told me something else. It inspired me to dream and inspire others' dreams.

One day I asked the school children to tell me what they wanted to be. They told me they wanted to be Doctors. It was Friday. I thought about it, how could I help them in their dream? How can I inspire them? I am an engineer… What should I do?

I prayed to God for guidance. And he answered. I called my friends, told them I wanted to organize a trip to RIMS – the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences. Everyone resented. Filled with self-doubt and negativity, they gave me various reasons for not going.

One said, “What if you meet an accident?”

Another said, “You need permission from RIMS…”, the third said, “We can’t manage this…may be some other time…”

But words of Robert Schuller, Swami Vivekananda, the Holy Bible, The Holy Quran and the Holy Geeta keep echoing in me. They told me that God wants me to carry on with this task. “Help will be provided to those how seek, for those with a noble cause.”

I declared, “I am going ahead with the plan, you are free to join me!”

Sunday was declared to be the destined day. Akhil decided to join me. I met 10 children at one place, Akhil met with 15 others. We booked two tempos to travel from the BIT Mesra campus to the main road. There, I saw a bus. My heart told me, this bus is never here. It’s God’s help. Go ask for it. I thought Akhil is better at dealing about financial matters, so I sent him instead. The driver decided not only to carry us to RIMS, but also expressed that he would bring us back.

We played Antakshari during the journey. Then we reached RIMS. We came to know that on Sunday, the college is closed, but medical students had exams. Akhil said, “That’s why I asked you to take permission. It does not work like this. Now you see, there was no point in coming here. Its all a waste!”

I asked him to wait, and went straight to the Director's Office. I told him who we were and what we wanted. He was so happy he asked me sit down, then appreciated our efforts, asked me to keep it going and ensured he will provide all the help necessary for any future tours. He assigned two Guards, who took us around the campus and showed different departments. 

 

The doctors were also glad to have those children in their campus. They patiently answered children's questions. And to my surprise, these children really asked interesting questions. They asked about procedures of donating blood as they wanted to donate blood. Even the nurses and other support staff contributed with their own knowledge.

The children really enjoyed the trip. Not only that, those who did not join us, asked us to organize trips from them again & again. There was another school nearby, we used to teach children there as well, the news reached them and then they started demanding a trip.

 

That, gave me the ultimate satisfaction, and proved my theory of Goodwill – If you are working for a noble cause, God’s help will arrive. I don’t know if any of those children will become doctors, for they are very poor, but then even if one of them becomes a doctor, wouldn’t it make a difference?

Your Facebook Likes, Tweets and Blog Comments can help to generate funds to buy books and clothes for the underprivileged.

If you would like to contribute, your Facebook Likes, Blog Comments, Digg Likes, Tweets can help us generate funds. How? Here's what you have to do:

1. You have to click on this link The Journey of Paritraan.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Leave a comment.
3. At the top of the Page, there are 4 buttons - Digg, Facebook Like, Tweet and Facebook Share.
4. You need to sign to Facebook, Twitter and/or Digg to contribute. Then Like it, Share it, Tweet it, and Digg it.

In case you are in a corporate environment where security policies do not allow you to visit social networking sites [for obvious reasons] please use the comments in the blog. You can Like, Share and tweet about it when you are using your personal net. To get to the article, you can either visit my blog i.e. www.aasthik.com or simple use Google to search for "the journey of paritraan", the very first result will be the article.


This article was a part of Article Writing competition organized by another Not-for-Profit Organization called TechAloo [their official Facebook page- www.facebook.com/techaloo] dedicated at promoting Social Entrepreneurship.

The article "The Journey of Paritraan" has won the first round. For the second round we need more Facebook likes, Shares, Digg, Tweets and TechAloo Comments. This will help us win Rs. 3000/- which will be used to buy books and clothes for children.