Sunday, March 29, 2015

The Sweet Delight of Working for a Child Rights NGO

My first brush with the world of child rights and its sorry state of the neglect, came one afternoon in college, when a tall, burly man walked in to talk to us about his organization, and how he had pledged to work towards upliftment of this cause.

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Mr. Nitin Wadhwani addressing the CACR interns.
Soon after, almost all of my friends began to get involved with this organization. ‘CACR’ would be mentioned in almost all of our conversations and I would be bombarded with stories of the successful initiatives it had undertaken, and achievements that had accrued to it. And now, here I am, a little more than half a year later. The organization, the Citizens Association for Child Rights, that had taken HR College by storm is a place where I can proudly say I am a blogger and intern. That man, Mr. Nitin Wadhwani is now my boss. This is my story of how I got involved with a cause that deserves a lot of attention, but gets only a little.

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The "sweet delight" of CACR (pun intended.)
I do have a history of being involved with NGOs and social issues in the past; I was in charge of the marketing operations of SevaConnect, an NGO which seeked to provide a platform for other organizations to interact, and also tried my hand at teaching underprivileged children, among other similar activities.

Sadly, all of these endeavors, while successful, were short lived. Poor coordination, waning enthusiasm, and a myriad number of other factors caused these to go south.

But after having completed one internship period at CACR, and on the brink of my second, I am proud to say that this is far from what is happening here.

It is one of the few NGOs I have seen, that is gifted with a team of dedicated, and experienced individuals, that swear by its cause. It is one of the few NGOs I have seen, that has successfully managed to create for itself a network of student interns, and a network of tie ups with respectable organizations such as the BMC, social service cells of other colleges etc. It is one of the few NGOs I have seen, that has strived not only to sermonize about the cause they are working for, but has strived to actually make a difference.

The MustRun Marathon
Whether it is holding talks with the BMC, checking the quality of mid-day meals, or hosting marathons, dance sessions and organizing computer literacy sessions and other activities for underprivileged children, I am proud to say, CACR has the unique distinction of being an NGO that not only preaches a cause, but actually works extensively to support it.

My personal experience too has been one providing few matters to complain about. Being active in various spheres of academics and extracurriculars, I wasn’t fortunate enough to dedicate myself completely as a volunteer, but could only find it in myself to contribute to this organization through helping in handling the blog of CACR.

This has provided me with a wealth of knowledge on many issues, and has helped me hone my writing and content creation skills. Having a relatively free reign in choosing of topics to write upon, I discovered a number of topics and issues that I previously knew nothing about, and this strengthened my desire to be more involved.

I am truly proud to be a part of this organization. Not only am I gaining invaluable experience and honing my skills, but I also feel I am able to contribute, no matter in how small a quantum, to a cause that deserves the attention of every person who has a heart.


-By Anand Banerjee
Anand is a creative intern at the +Citizens Association For Child Rights , handling the CACR blog.

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