Proud to be Teacher - Teach India - Teach !!!

Here is my cool badge from TOI’s Teach India Initiative !!



Proud to be a Teacher!!!

This is exactly what I was looking for. TOI is doing great work - Perfect utilization of the scale. TOI should be complimented for the two significant drives: Lead India and Teach India. The first produced awareness and brought to limelight some people doing exceptional work. The second is the need of the hour for India.

It was hearting to note that 10,000+ educated corporate associates, doctors, lawyers, and most significantly, college students have volunteered for the program. The fact that these people have committed for 2 hours of Sunday to the noble cause over spending the leisure time sitting in lounge / shopping in mall / watching a movie speaks of the sensitivity towards the problem of illiteracy among the Indians.

The program is currently launched in 4 metro cities of India. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that soon the waves of the program would reach to Tier-2 cities and ultimately to most disadvantaged rural areas. My father, an avid social work, has been doing the same activity for last 10 years in my town. An educator by profession, he renders free-after school tutoring to poor schools kids. I have often mooted upon spreading his initiative on a larger scale. My efforts to popularize the program with help of top businessmen in my town and senior social workers of the town have to opening up of three news chapters in the surrounding areas. Yet scope of the contributions has always been limited. TOI comes in and launches a similar program on a National scale.

I am eager to commence work and play my small part in educating few kids. It is so gratifying when some of my father's old students who have managed to get decent jobs come home and thank whole-heartedly to my father. My dad is a proud teacher. I too have started on his journey.

A rocking meeting for an Environmentalist

I had won the Just A Minute (JAM) competition, an extempore competition, for generating ideas to make TCS Gurgaon center better cater to environment perseverance. Thereafter I got an opportunity to spend time with chief auditors who came to test TCS GGN center for ISO 14001 certification. I must admit I heard some rocking examples from the auditors and I hereby attempt to recollect some of those examples. Essentially these examples establish the huge environmental degradation caused due to the day to day activities we conducted.

First, we discussed around the Kyoto Protocol. I asked him how much concerned business leaders and CEO are towards environment protection. How much does environmental implication effect the business decisions they make? He explained how European Nations are quite strict on this. Further he said there are positive developments since 22 US states have signed for the Protocol and US is now showing positive signs. Then he began to provide examples from day to day life. Some of them are as follows:

1. Where have all the house sparrows gone? Did you ever notice? Did you ever miss the chirping of this small bird that was so usual 8-10 years ago? Well, this development has gone largely unnoticed but the cause of this development has not. The success story of Indian Telecom Industry, increase in tele-density, and rise of Bharti Airtel are quite celebrated subjects in media. However, it is the same usage of the cell phones and their radiations that have led to elimination of House Sparrows from the vicinity.

2. Oil Import from Australia to India caused a rare coastal bird to disappear from Australian Beaches: - How is that possible? We are importing oil from Aus. to India. How can it lead to extinction of a bird from Aussie beaches? Well the story goes on that when ships unloaded the oil at Indian ports, they used to put some water from Indian coasts in the tanks so the ship has some weight on it while traveling the back. The same water, collected from Indian ports, was offloaded at on reaching the coast at Australian side. This water was not suitable for development of Algae on the beach. When Algae became a rare, an particular insect that used to live on algae got eradicated. This lead to reduction in number of a particular fish that was quite abundant in the area. The fish was eventually preferred food for the rare bird that got extinct. Did you notice the chain there? Further, did you notice that man can to know of the situation only when the impact reaches 3 levels higher - Algae, Insect, and Fish went unnoticed.

3. Drink Milk causes Impotency. Period!!! Surprised. I was amazed. For a moment I though the Auditor has got this one wrong. But he got it right. The story goes behind this is that these days cows are given injections to deliver more milk. These injections basically have female hormones. When these hormones are increased in cow's body, they naturally flow in the milk as well. So when female hormones reach male bodies in form of milk, it causes certain damage to male hormones. Next time your mom pushes you to drink milk, don't listen to them :) !!

There were several more examples. So much of information flew around; I wasn't able to gather all. For once it felt as if everything we are doing is wrong. Understanding our situation, the auditor explained his stand using one more example.

TCS is coming up with a new center in Chennai that will host around 23000 people. An average of 500 - 800 buses will be needed for transportation of the associates. The same buses will heat up the environment and causes excessive damages. Now the question is who is responsible?

Are the employees who work there responsible? But they simply work there, they didn't make this center. IS TCS responsible or is the Industry - a bank, a financial service, Retail Company who created the demand for the software with TCS responsible? Or is the end user who created such demand with the industry that they need software responsible? Can you answer?

He concluded that ultimately all of us are responsible for everything going on. It is collective responsibility of each of us, to spread the awareness, to stay conscious and contribute in whatever manners we can!!

I am going to contribute my bit and through this post, if I have inspired you also then I have already started !!!

American Red Cross Measles Initiative !! Updates !!

I just recieved updates from a American Red Cross co-ordinator on the major measles related initiative the organization has been pursuing. Some fantastic achievements, I found are a drop of 68% in children dying due to improper vacination from year 2000 to 2006.As for numbers, a reductions from 757,000 deaths per year in 2000 to 242,000 in 2006. Furthermore, there has been a reduction of 91% in deaths of children under age of 5 in Africa alone owing to great contributions by American Red Cross. I reflect back, how an idea by a swiss national influeced an American nurse to lead into formulation of such huge organization !! Amazing !!

Way to go though !! Still, 600 Children die every day and a million more at risk. I am glad I did my bit and will continue. I implore you to join, have you ever thought that 1$ can be equal to 1 life?

Click here for video clipings and further information.

Measles Initiative [ Humanity binds humans - part 2]

It is disheartening to note the number of children dying just because they did not get proper vaccination, which can be obtained at cost of less than a dollar for a child.I got a chance to Volunteer in the Measles Initiative of American Red Cross's Twin Cities Chapter. I am glad to have made a contribution to save atleast 10 children.

I hail Red Cross’s participation in this resounding initiative that has saved 360 million children globally in 5 years. I feel a part of this process today. I implore you to be a part as well. For more information about the intiative please visit this page:
Measles Initiative Information


Go online, call 800 number or send a check, if nothing at least forward this message to your friends. Check this page for the same:
Measles Promotion

Furthermore, I also recently read about Arun Sarin’s candid gesture to establish $10 million Charity Establishment in India out of which 1 Million pounds is directed towards Measles Initiative in India, a largest corporate initiative in the region. You may want to read the full article here:
Vodafone Charity Establishment

Never before did this thought crossed my mind that $1 = 1 Life !!!

Humanity binds human.....

.....American Red Cross.....

This post conforms to my induction program with American Red Cross today. I must say the people associated with organization are real gem, very good communicators and exceptionally humble. I wanted to explore more on them such as their remuneration for the job, their motivation to pick up the non-profit center as full time employees etc, but I thought to keep these questions for the later and to observe them induct fresh people, the volunteers, into their program.

The day started when I got up at 7:30 on a Saturday morning to make it to 10:00 induction training of American Red Cross. [Hey, I saw some eye brows raised… it's not always that getting early on Saturday means Cricket]. The place for the presentation was a huge room in a factory close to Downtown Minneapolis. The factory owner had VOLUNTEERED for the cause. He also candidly arranged for Snacks, for locals, Breakfast for me. Hmmm, the people helping for the food were VOLUNTEERS from the factory who choose not to spend their Saturday in a cozy place.Amazing..how humanity binds humans !!

The lead person from American Red Cross, in his beautiful Red Cross Dress, was quite jovial and lively. He shared his story of how he got associated with Red Cross, some interesting experiences such as during the floods in Minneapolis how dilapidated the conditions were and how they distributed food and water etc etc…. Then a lady took over. She showed us, around 100 VOLUNTEERS, a video clipping from the Red Cross. I realized this must be a standard one used across US.

I got to know that American Red Cross is a part of the world wide organization, Red Cross. Historically, Red Cross was started in 1859 by a Swiss Businessman, Henry Dunant, after he observed thousands of solider wounded and killed in a battle with Italy. Any taker of the question: What fetches the Red Cross Organization, its name and its symbol? Please add to the comments. J !! Later, an influential nurse, Clara Barton was impressed with Red Cross and she established American Red Cross in 1881. It was then that an organization so mammoth, so influential was born in America. I wonder how simple ideas by common people pursed with relentless passion can actually change the world.

The video clippings of the malnutrition children, underprovided families living in deep poverty made the environment somber and the people empathic. I could feel, deep inside, a desire to go out and lift at least one person from such deserted places to the comforts of life. I could also observe other VOLUNTEERS feeling the same. I realized so many people have turned up here today, in a small setting of this huge organization to make a difference to humanity. I also felt that though many more people may not have turned up here, given a chance to nourish humanity they too will contribute. click click Humanity binds humans click click..... What American Red Cross has done is that it has provided a platform to such people. I realized how fortunate the person behind this initiative are.. For every Volunteer's contribution, they too are contributors to society, Mr. Henry is still alive, and he is still changing the lives of people. I vouched, I will continue on his path.

A bit emotional…. I know. But it was so.. I wish I could add that clipping to my blog.

Once done with the clippings, we were informed about various opportunities available for the VOLUNTEERS and asked to complete some paper work that I happily completed. Some interesting prospects such as on the presentation delivery on health benefits in schools, Blood Donation camp activist were there but I could not enroll because they required weekday's commitment. I have, however, enrolled into the team of the fund raising for the local chapters..as I hope to explore more on this excellent opportunity !!! Looking forward to my experience with Mr. Henry !!