Let's Connect For A Cause

Where is the recession? I said to myself as I read the newspaper article sometime back.

An interesting article in one of the leading dailies in the country highlighted the fact that- India is witnessing a NGO boom, which has now become a billion dollar industry.
Yes, NGOs or (non) profits is a profitable business in India!
Wow! what a contradiction isn't it?

There are now almost 2 million NGOs in a population of 1.2 billion people, i.e 1 NGO for every 600 people as against 1 cop for 943 people and A whopping USD 2 billion received by about 22,000 NGOs in the country, in 2010-11 alone.

Despite all these figures and huge budgets for education and health, it is shocking to know that there are almost 8.1 million children in age group 8-13 years, who are out of school as per UNICEF report and almost 61 million children are malnourished and stunted, according to Hunger and Malnutrition Report.

The fact is that there is a total lack of accountability, which has resulted in none of the subsidies, schemes and funds budgeted actually reaching out to the actual beneficiaries.
It is a matter of great shame that even a very noble Mid Day Meal scheme does not ensure good and nutritious meals for children enrolled in government schools, though official records show that almost 10.68 crore children are getting the benefit of hot, cooked , nutritious meals in almost 12 lakh government schools.

One of the major reasons for the abject failure of these schemes is allowing NGOs to create parallel systems rather than supplementing and strengthening the system, which would have helped in creating better awareness and improved implementation of all these schemes meant to benefit the poor and needy.

There are no examples of any of the PPP -Private Public partnership models, which have helped in improving the education and healthcare systems in the country and it is matter of shame that most the resources provided by Government have resulted in commercial exploitation, benefiting only a small percentage of the entire population.

At CACR we don't believe in creating alternative systems rather we supplement,strengthen, and improve the existing one. The Education department officials are well qualified (only first class or distinction candidates are selected ) for teaching and administration, experienced and quite well paid with government benefits. Why not help them do their job better instead of making your own pedagogy taking over a school and weakening the existing system?

Lets be part of the solution and channelize what we have. Volunteer and be an empowered citizen.

Team CACR
+Citizens Association For Child Rights
www.ngocacr.com

They say “the journey is more important than the destination”. Thousands of people participate in the marathons every year but only a percent of them actually win. Some of the participants leave it mid-way while some take a shortcut.

This year Citizens association for child rights- CACR, a NGO working to improve quality of education in public schools on Mumbai India, was going to sponsor 70+ school girls from Municipal (inner city) schools to participate in India's only women marathon-DNA iCAN.

I joined the DNA iCan half marathon (5km fun run) as a CACR volunteer on 9^th March 2014 at BKC,Mumbai and earned some of the following lessons of life:

Challenge yourself:

I was volunteering to accompany the Municipal students for the fun run, so initially I was in two minds whether or not to participate in the race. Later on, I caved in and joined the race. As I was completing the 1 km distance,the 13-14 year old school girls finished their 3kms. I was surprised and thought it is due to the age factor that I am slower than them.

But was it true?I realized that these girls had a single goal in my mind to win. For them the prize was the motivating factor. For me, there was no motivation, I ran for a cause. Could I challenge myself even if it is for a cause? We don’t challenge ourselves these days, either in job or in personal life. We are happy at the position we are. We use our weakness or economic scenario as our scapegoat.

Lesson 1: Challenge yourself, either in job for a particular position or in a business or in a marathon for 1^st prize or as a volunteer. Challenge keeps you active and happy. It also helps you overcome your weakness which you use as a reason of your failures. Use the mantra “I have to win” instead of “I will try to win”.

Know your Basics:

For every challenge it is important to know your basics, whether you an impulsive person or planner, knowing the environment is important. I knew the basics of a marathon-shoes,outfit, and a loads of energy, but “knowing” is different from “implementing”.

I wore the wrong size of shoe (I had only one pair which belonged to my sister and they looked cute). I paid the prize when my legs started killing me as the race started. Some of the participants had worn jeans which I thought was an outfit not suitable for a race and for a hot March Mumbai morning.

I like to walk, running is not my forte. I ran only once in a school, so running a 5km race proved to be difficult.

Lesson 2: Know your environment. Know your strength and weakness and accordingly prepare.

Strategy:

My strategy for the race was to run, but I had neither the physical or mental strength for running as I had no experience. So I alternated between running and walking to complete my 5km. Most of the participant had similar strategy as I saw everyone alternate between walking and running.

It is good to be cautious but having a low risk strategy always doesn't work. Some of the best companies in the world, leaders in the world, crafted the riskiest strategy to win.

For those who finished the race, their strategy was to walk, take break in between. For those who wanted to win, their strategy was to run and run with no break in between (reminded me of “The Tortoise and Hare Story).

Photo of school girls with few CACR volunteers after finishing the fun run

Lesson 3: Make strategies along the lines of winner. Push and push but never take a break. Taking a break means reevaluating your work and negating it. So your strategy should be such that every milestone you take you win. Don’t stop at the milestone, continue moving forward.

Be innovative:

As my shoes were causing hell to me, I decided to loosen the laces and continue with my walk/run. One of my colleagues suggested me to remove them and run, but I felt it was a funny idea. We follow the rules/ societal etiquette without batting an eye. I saw no one running without shoes and I thought I would look weird and may become a status update for someone due to this stunt.

Next day I opened the newspaper and I read an article where one of the winners decided to run without shoes. I was literally gob smacked.

I was still happy that irrespective of the pain in my feet I finished my race.

Lesson 4: Be innovative. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken to achieve something in life.

Focus:

Due to my shoe debacle, few people came to me to made me aware of the dangers of letting a shoelace run in all directions. I was embarrassed and happy at the same time. Embarrassed because of my silly idea and happy that people cared, but I also started thinking how did they notice?

When you are running or walking your vision should be forward, not upwards/downwards. Other things should be blurred to you.

Clearly, it was not the case. This is what we do in life; we are never focused in life. Something or other sways our vision, ultimately affecting our decision.

Lesson 5: Concentrate. Focus. Stop listening to gossip or be affected by political/economic/familial situations while achieving your goals. Success is never easy to achieve. There is something or other hindering you on your path to your goals

Apart from this there is one more important lesson I learned Opportunity. Few of the BMC-Municipal students completed the race in 30-40 mins. With proper training and motivation can these students win in the next marathon? Perhaps, they definitely had the potential.

Can they become the next P.T Usha, India's running champion ? Do schools make Marathon as an opportunity to teach their students in the art of physical and mental strength? Do they use this opportunity to create the best runner in the world? I guess not... but they could start.I hope to get the message across.

Sometimes you can change your life by changing the life of others.

JZ is a volunteer with CACR .

CACR - www.ngocacr.com