Making a small difference

Around 3 hours from Mumbai, on a drive along the countryside, I happened to visit a hamlet called Hedulipada of about 300 people along with my cousin who has worked in this region through various social initiatives. All residents in this village are small farmers and herdsmen. Almost all the produce that they make just about sustains their food supplies for the year. They don’t make much money to support their other needs and rely on government support for their education and other needs. Needless to mention, it’s a poor hamlet with limited resources for livelihood.

What was fascinating was that I could see a lot of small children and many of them had a very basic lifestyle just about enough to satisfy their needs or in some cases even less but they were all cheerful!

I was touched by the love of the people here and  they were extremely warm and welcoming. Everybody’s face lit up when I started talking to them and asking how does their daily routine look like. Most of the youth in the hamlet was literate but due to limited opportunities, went back to farming, although not so lucrative. 

Since the festival of Diwali, India’s biggest celebration was round the corner, I wondered if it would be possible to make this Diwali special for this hamlet? Could I do something within the limited time I had? The challenge was that I was about to go back to Mumbai the following day and whether it would be possible to organize something after returning home especially when one tends to drown in one’s daily routine. Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot and prepared a small write up/slide of this initiative, this village, its people and requested people to donate their used belongings such as clothes, bedsheets, shoes etc. anything that they are willing to give. Nothing in cash only in kind. I circulated this in my groups and connections on social media, mainly whatsapp and Facebook.  Slowly people started responding asking me more information about this initiative.

Within a week, I received an overwhelming response, a lot of them sent across whatever they could including colleagues from my current organisation. Some came personally with their gifts, some sent their drivers and for those who couldn’t come, I collected their gifts. In one particular incident, I received a call from a gentleman whom I didn’t know personally but after he received information about this initiative through social media, he took all the effort to come over with a bagful of his donations. In fact, after meeting me, he arranged for another bag of clothes the next day! The gifts came pouring in. At the end of this drive, my car was full of all the goodies and donations I received. At one point in time, I had trouble stuffing in all of that in my car- a rather good problem to have!

The following weekend, I drove back to this village and the folks were thrilled to know when I told them that there was something special for Diwali this year. The kids were ecstatic with what they got.  There was something for everyone, clothes, household items, bedsheets, blankets, winter clothes, toys. People had generously donated and I was able to share all that with these people.

Fortunately, every family in the hamlet received something for themselves. All this felt great and it was an extremely gratifying experience, especially when this happened just before Diwali.

As the next step, my plan is to create employment opportunities for the youth of this village through some skill building activities or projects.