As times pass by, life gets more convoluted for innumerable people out there. There are those who become disadvantaged by being differently abled. Fortunately, there are specific organizations that address this need in the community. I have been actively involved with organizations like Chennai volunteers and Bhumi, volunteering for them every weekend. For one organization named Andhara Mahila Sabha, I worked one on one with 2nd and 3rd graders who are struggling with their linguistic abilities. As part of my work I would bring flash cards to connect with the students interests and make learning more blissful. One of my favorite memories was when a boy named Karthik, a student who I had been working with for several weeks told me that he enjoyed learning from the flash cards and helped me create similar ones for other students. Consequently, I learnt a lot from community service and I hope to keep volunteering and learning more. The exceptional thing about community service is that it makes you grateful for what you have and most importantly it teaches you to count your blessings and not your troubles because your troubles are nothing whatsoever compared to the real troubles those kids endure, sustain and undergo in their lives. I have invariably believed that if you’re in the luckiest 1 percent of humanity you owe it to the rest of humanity to take care of the other 99 percent. Only if we have improving communities today will we have improved communities for the upcoming generations.

My journey with Chennai volunteers began one year back. Chennai volunteers is an NGO that has been working diligently for over 10 years now in fields like gender equality, disaster relief and uplifting the less fortunate. I worked for them as a head volunteer for several months where we engaged with differently abled adults and students of several schools, conducting activities that worked on their vocabulary, increased their awareness of the neighborhood, help set up gardens and played different games with them. Moreover, I conducted fitness workshops for them providing them knowledge of basic exercises and nutrition for leading a healthy lifestyle. I was the head organizer and funder for events at these schools on occasions such as independence and teacher’s day.

I have been working with Bhumi for quite sometime now, which is one of India’s largest youth volunteer non-profit organizations. We go to different schools for students from humble backgrounds of society and we educate them on issues such as global warming, teaching them basic environmental concepts and encourage them to take an approach which will impact the environment favorably. Moreover, I was an active volunteer in Daan Utsav, in activities such as seedball making and afforestation where we succeeded in planting hundreds of trees.