Every now and then we will bring you daily life stories from our employees, volunteers, donors and NGOs who have had experiences which reiterates the goodness of human kind. In today's guest column, Aarti Madhusudan, a long-time volunteer with GiveIndia tells us about one such experience...

About 10 days ago I was in Mumbai on work and needed to go to Dadar to take a bus to Pune. I got off the auto near the flyover and hailed a cab - the first two passed me by, clearly not interested. The third stopped and I opened the door at the back. My eyes met really garish seat covers bright yellow and red flowered velvet- yet it went well with my mood that morning- I felt extra cheerful than usual and so quite casually said "Good Morning bhaiyya - Dadar jaana hai". The old cabbie looked a bit puzzled- he said "Kya?" I repeated the request. He wanted to know what I'd said before I said where I wanted to go. So I repeated the "Good Morning" quite nonchalantly, wondering if I was getting into one of those "why-cant-you-be-more-of-a-desi-and-say-namaste" type arguments. It was a great morning - bright blue skies and bearable temperatures and I felt I had to say that it was indeed a good morning :-)

Abdul Malik Mohammed had driven a cab in Mumbai for 27 years. No one, he said absolutely no one had wished him a cheerful "Good Morning" or a namaste in all these years. He went on to tell me an interesting story  about his life, both here and about his family in UP and the 35 minute ride was over sooner than I expected or wanted it to. The sole bread winner of a family of 9 - Abdulji goes to meet his family once a year for 3-4 days. His children treat him with the courtesy that would extend to a stranger. Its a huge price to pay and yet, he says, he has seen them develop into smart kids with a lot of potential. None of them will need to ride around a crowded city with passengers who invariably are irritated at the traffic, the heat, the rain, the pace and really dont care that the person driving them has to do this for the most part of his waking day.

As I was getting off, fumbling inside my disorganized bag to take out the money - Abdulji turned around and said "Jo izzat tumne mujhe khushi khushi good morning bol kar di hai woh paise de ke badnaam ho jayegi" (The respect that you have given me by wishing me "Good Morning" so happily will be belittled if you give me money). I did not insist and we both went our way. I am sure some day I will bump into him somewhere...its a small world.

I realized that day it takes so little to get someone off to a good start to the day. We often find people greeting their maids, drivers, newspaper walas with "instructions" when they meet them in the morning. 'Accha aaj bhindi aur paratha banao' or 'kal se paper jaldi le aana' , or 'aaj office nahin kahin aur jaana hai' or 'chabee gaadi mein hi hai- ladka saaf kar rahaa hai'.  These past 10 days I have started to wish everyone with a greeting whenever I feel great (almost everyone does when they wake up!) and I can see the difference it has made in their attitudes towards themselves, towards me and towards the work that they are doing.

It costs nothing to be cheerful and share that with those around you - certainly till the daily grind begins and threatens to drag one down with itself. From that only the true Buddhist can escape :-)

Do let us know if you liked reading Aarti's story and would like to hear from her often? Do you also have an interesting experience that you would like to share? Do write to us and we will be happy to share the same on our blog.

Every evening a young writer spent a couple of hours at the beach just as the tide was ebbing. The sound of the waves and the sight of the vast ocean helped him gather his thoughts. And every evening he noticed an old man standing at the edge of the water. The man would bend constantly bend down to pick up something from the wet sand and throw it into the water.

After observing him for a few days, the writer decided to move closer to see what the old man was doing. As he moved closer he saw thousands of starfish which were trapped in the wet sand when the tide receded. The old man was picking up the starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the ocean.

He watched the old man for a few minutes wondering why he bothered doing this - after all how many could he save anyway. The writer went up to the old man and said ‘Sir, the tide brings in thousands of these starfish which get caught in the sand and cannot get back into the water. You can save just a few. Why are you wasting your time? What difference does it make?’ The old man bent down, picked up a starfish, threw it back into the water and said ‘It made a difference to that one.’

The next evening saw the old man at his task as usual. Only this time the young writer was standing by his side picking up the starfish and throwing them back into the water one by one.

Believe in the Power of One. Many Ones make a Million!

A couple of months back, this blog had reproduced an article on the Salwen family from the New York times and how their daughter changed their life. Deepa, one of our bloggers, has just read the book (not yet available in India but a paperback version from Amazon costs $10.17) and wants to share her thoughts

This is a story of one family’s decision, running comfortably on the proverbial treadmill, to sell their palatial house and give half of the proceeds ($800,000) to charity. At 14, Hannah Salwen wanted her family to DO something to help people – “I really don’t want to be the kind of family that just talks about doing things. I want to be a family that actually does them”.

The family did often give money to charitable causes and volunteered with the homeless and Habitat for Humanity but Hannah didn't feel like that was enough and that it was a soullessness giving.  Joan Salwen, the mother, put forth a challenge - would the family be willing to sell their home and move into something half that size to donate half the money? Amazingly, the answer was YES and the family started on a life-changing project. While their initial intention was to improve the lives of others, it turned out that they grew closer as a family and gained so much more than they gave away.

One reason for that togetherness was the innovative way in which Joan & Kevin Salwen brought together the whole family into all the decisions that went into their giving – right from what issues to support (poor people issues like hunger/homelessness etc. or everybody’s issues like smoking/cancer/environment), how to support – local/abroad/spend a lot on few people or a lot on few people & level of involvement. One assumes that writing the check to a charity is the hard part and that money makes everything better for those in need. However, with the careful research done by the Salwens, this proves to be untrue.

“A Princeton University study showed that more than 1.6 million people go on mission trips in a typical year, spending an average of eight days. The total invested in these sojourns: $2.4 billion a year. But evidence is growing that the social impact can be a huge minus for the developing world. Critics deride the trips as “religious tourism” for “vacationaries”. Often the activities undertaken by these groups are little more than make-work. The Washington Post noted that one Mexican church was painted six times by six different mission groups in a single summer.”

The Salwens researched & debated on various causes and charities, finally settling on the Hunger Project, a New York City-based international development organization that has a good record of tackling global poverty. They traveled to Ghana with a Hunger Project executive, John Coonrod, who is an inspiration in his own right. Over the years, John Coonrod and his wife have donated $500,000 from their modest aid-worker salaries making them amongst the top Hunger Project donors in New York.

As Kevin wraps it up - “To put it in a literary context, we had come of age. We had coalesced as a family, brought together by a mission that really mattered. Maybe it was a bit premature to claim victory, but sitting there at the dinner table in Accra, Ghana, I believed we had found our family legend. We knew what we wanted to stand for.”  

Just one pet-peeve, personally I would have liked to read more about the discussion, introspection and soul searching that must have happened before these four people agreed to change the path of their lives in such a major way, in particular when Joseph, the skeptic asks “Why is  everyone getting so moved by something we see every day, like the homeless guy” or when Kevin comes to know that John was already a follower of the Power of Half, he thinks to himself “Would I have dismissed him as a nutty idealist had I still been on the proverbial treadmill?”

All in all, a very inspiring read with uplifting anecdotes & suggested activities that you & I could participate in, interwoven into their story. Medase Salwens!

The Salwens have redefined the American Dream to mean that sharing can lead to a better life for self and for others, can we redefine ours to build a better society and community for ourselves?

- Deepa Varadarajan

You can choose to sponsor one such child's primary education for Rs. 13,500 or choose other ways of supporting Parikrma Humanity Foundation

We are reproducing an editorial about one of our listed NGOs, Shoshit Seva Sangh, written by Dileep Padgaonkar, consulting editor at Times of India, which appeared in the April 10, 2010 edition of the national daily.

One of the most tragicomic figures in Delhi is a senior civil servant who hangs on in the capital after retirement in the hope of wangling some government assignment or the other. A handful of these retired folk are lucky. They manage to land one job after another for years on end. The unlucky ones gravitate to the media where they turn into acerbic critics of the government which they have served with docile acquiescence for a greater part of their adult life.

But one also comes across civil servants who return to their hometowns and put their retirement to a more uplifting use. They write books, learn new skills, join local think tanks, engage in social work or, quite simply, develop interest in a new or unattended hobby. Singularly bereft of rancour and cynicism, they do not as a rule give vent to nostalgia about their years in harness.


Take the case of J K Sinha. He served the government of India for well over 30 years, rose to the rank of secretary in the cabinet secretariat and, within less than a month of his retirement in 2005, went back to his ancestral home in Patna. He had already made up his mind about what he would do next to keep himself busy. Nothing worried him more than the rural-urban and poor-rich divides in Bihar. They generated relentless social conflict in the state which, in turn, resulted in the growth of caste animosities, religious extremism and Naxalite violence.

Convinced that one could not rely on the state machinery alone to stem this violence, Sinha launched the Shoshit Seva Sangh (SSS) whose objective was to provide quality education to the poorest and most deprived community in Bihar the Mushars. These landless labourers, who lived in squalid ghettos, could not recall a day when they had two square meals or a respite from the abuse and blows heaped on them by upper-caste landlords. 

The beginnings of the SSS were modest. Digging into his own savings, and with some contributions from friends and family members, he started an English-medium residential school in rented premises. It charged no fees and provided uniforms, toiletries, books, stationery and computers at no cost. But it recruited well-qualified teachers and paid them good salaries.

However, none of this impressed the Mushars at first. They could not imagine that the school in Patna would be any different from the village school with its absentee teachers, leaking roofs, lack of textbooks and, not least, pervasive caste discrimination. But within two years, their attitude had undergone a sea change. More than 750 children appeared for admission tests for the 50 seats for the pre-school and class I. Encouraged by the response, the SSS proceeded to rent more space, increase the number of classes to standard IX, recruit more teachers and expand dormitory and sports facilities. The teacher-student ratio was pegged at 1:17 better by far than in the most expensive private schools, let alone the government ones.

The journey of the SSS has not been an easy one though. Battered by centuries of poverty and discrimination, time and patience was needed to inculcate in the Mushars a sense of self-esteem. Only then could they develop the confidence that they would be able to acquire the knowledge and skills to face a competitive world.

None of this has deterred Sinha from expanding the scope of the project. Earlier this year the SSS purchased one acre of land in Patna to erect a school building. An agreement to purchase another acre adjacent to this one has been reached. The building work is expected to be completed by 2013 at a cost of Rs 5 crore. By and by the school will be able to house between 800-1,000 students.

Sinha hopes to collect funds from individuals and corporate groups that are convinced that his efforts are deserving of support. The achievements of the SSS so far are no more than a tiny step to bridge the rural-urban and rich-poor divide in Bihar. But for the Mushar children, who have been quick and eager to study, it is a giant leap forward in their quest for a life free of want and fear.

Do you know of any other such selfless individuals putting their retirement time to good use? We would love to tell their story to the entire world.

After holding two challenges last year, we certainly thought twice before launching the India Tax Saving Challenge. But after seeing the great response that its gotten, we're really glad that we went ahead with it. Over Rs. 50 lacs was raised through 1,400+ donors in just 22 days! A big thank you to all donors for their support and congratulations to all NGOs who made this happen.

Parivaar Education Society, Operation Asha and New Life were the top 3 NGOs to raise the most funds. They received matching grants of Rs. 5 lacs, Rs. 3 lacs and Rs. 2 lacs respectively. They were followed by Society For Child Development, Society of Friends of the Sassoon Hospitals (SOFOSH), JK MAASS Foundation and Psycho Educational Society - all of whom received Rs. 1 lac each for their fundraising efforts.

Operation Asha, New Life and Parivaar Education Society also walked away with the prizes for the most number of unique donors.

The full list of winners of the challenge is available at http://www.giveindia.org/t-india-tax-saving-challenge-winners.aspx

In terms of overall numbers this is what was achieved:

112 iGive pages
97 NGOs
1,411 donors
Rs. 50 lacs+ raised

and 18 NGOs have won matching grants amounting to Rs. 24,20,401!

Our sincere thanks to everyone who made this challenge a success.

A team from GiveIndia went for TEDxMumbai on Apr 3rd. Deepa, one of the Give Bloggers, had this to say on one of the talks that she liked.


Yesterday, at TEDx Mumbai, we had the pleasure of hearing V. Raghunathan talk about “Why We (Indians) Are the Way We Are”.  He has written the book “Games Indians Play” where he applies Game theory to explain the nature & behavior of Indians. 

In his book, he writes about a farmer whose corn won top awards year after year. When a reporter asked about the secret of his success, the farmer attributed it to the fact that he shared his corn with his neighbors. Why, the reporter wondered, would the farmer want to share his seed when those neighbors also competed with him for the prize? The farmer's reply was, "The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors do the same."

While we have made the most of the free market economy since 1990s, what will it take for us to imbibe the farmer’s mentality and share a small percentage of our fortunes with others? 

Few snippets from a report by Bain Consulting -
 
“The number of so-called "high net worth individuals" in India has grown at about 11 per cent every year since 2000, possibly the fastest pace in the world, to more than 115,000 now. But when it comes to giving away money, India's rich are not very keen on loosening their purse-strings.”
 
“Most Indians have no qualms about giving cash to family, friends, household staff and religious institutions, but given the scale of poverty -- an estimated 40 per cent of India's 1.1-billion population lives on less than $1.25 a day -- Indians need to become way more generous.” 

High time the realization sinks in that it is in our own self-interest to take care of the world around us.

Tell us what percentage of your income you give currently? How much do you think you should give?