Weeks of our sincere efforts finally became successful. I take the pleasure of thanking all of you from the bottom of my heart for making this project a remarkable success.
Thank you Guys and Gals !!!
I'll just rush through the whole campaign. Guys, its a bit long mail rather very long, please don't get intimidated and I can assure reminisces of our campaign penned down in this mail will be really delightful.
Graffiti Campaign:
Volunteers from Oracle and Pankhudi, reached surprisingly at almost the correct time ( I would list +/- 30 minutes as correct time as per IST ;) ). Full of zeal and enthu, everyone jumped into blowing balloons. Even the gol-gappa walas weren't spared. They voluntarily enjoyed helping us to fullaofy (hinglish for blow) the balloons. I must applaud the girls for cajoling them. Ladki ka chakkar babubhai !!!!
One could hear bursting of balloons and shrieking of girls from all sides J.. You know girls can be scared of even a burst of a balloon.. Seriously, I am not pulling anyone's leg.
Some volunteers were busy holding the balloons,some fullaofying them and some writing messages on them : Adopt Orphans, Avoid poverty, Fight Illiteracy, Avoid Child labour and many more. A great idea Aparna and Jyoti !!!!
We divided ourselves into groups of two: one to IMAX and the other to Eat Street.
I was in Eat Street's Group and to our comfort, we got to put up our banner inside the Eat Street, though the other group had to manage it outside IMAX only L.
Cajoling people, enlightening them regarding child illiteracy, our campaign and Pankhudi and distributing balloons to the cutie pies are what followed afterwards. To our astonishment, everyone listened patiently and without much effort many voluntarily came to our banners to penned down their thoughts. It was good to see people thinking what to write for our caption " Childhood: God's gift or Nature's Wrath!!!"
A small flaw in our bookmarks coming a bit late will definitely help us to refine our plans better in future. I apologize for delaying the printing of bookmarks but there were some guidelines, which we had to adhere to and we had to change the design at the nick of time. L
Refreshment of samosas and sandwiches in the rain and shipment of bookmarks enthused the volunteers and a second round of canvassing followed.
Bakki deserves all the credit of getting all the refreshments from Hitec City till Eat Street.
The response to our campaign was tremendous and we all were happy with our efforts.
Finally, at around 7:15 both the groups assembled at Eat Street and we had huge applause for all the volunteers.
I would also like to thank Ramesh, who had to run from pillar to post to get permission from the DCP. But, due to present tensed conditions, we couldn't get the permission L.
KuDoZ to all of you to make this drive successful.
Sanitation Drive :
Exhausted with previous days' work, all of us tried our best to be on time. Surya,amazing - he reached at 7:30 in the morning .. a thumbs up to u man !!!
One by one we all kept pouring in ;) and we put up banners and GVD posters all across the street and the Government School. Finally our gang was ready to take on the streets by 10:00 a.m.
We divided ourselves into groups of 2 and spread ourselves into 3 different lanes all across the slum. People with masks on their mouths, having dustpans and jhadoos in their hands and with some posters: what the hell are these people doing here, was definitely the first thought on every slum resident's mind.
Cleaning all the papers,leaves and even dirty plants with stinky smell was what we all had to deal with next. But I really appreciate that none of the volunteers for even once said "No" to cleaning any garbage on the streets. The volunteers were so dedicated that someone even proposed an idea to clean cow dung on the streets. Man, that would've been really shitty and messy J !!!!!
Conversing with slum residents was definitely a bit difficult for non-telugu speaking guys, but a telugu and non-telugu speaking combo helped us to resolve the problem.I could even see non-telugu speaking people to try learn some telugu J Educating people about sanitation and hygiene, requesting them not to throw garbage outside and distributing pamphlets containing steps to good hygiene,our main motto, was carried very aptly by all the volunteers.
Thumbs up to all the volunteers and people from MCH to carry this drive with utmost sincerity and dedication!!!!
A backbreaking work was followed by moments of merrymaking. Clash of the Titans including two teams of dumb charades made everyone forget their tiredness and the room burst into wild guesses from all corners.But hamara nanha sipahi bimaar ho gaya tha and all of us missed pulling Aparna's leg.
Bhookhe bhediye were desperately waiting for the food to come. When given an option between play and food, a unanimous vote went to "Pehle pet pooja phir kaam dooja". The girls (budding housewives) nicely served the food to everyone. Inke pati thoda sa khush to hone wale hain .Atleast jala hua khana(yeh log abhi amateur cooks hain) araam se khila to dengi :P..
Kidding !! Good job girls J. The food was delicious and I believe everyone chatofied their ungalis J
Education Awareness Drive
Around 3:30 pm, we all sprang into action once again. A round of cleaning the Government School,spreading the carpets ,setting up the projector,screen followed later on. Everyone went for a round of canvassing for the movie to every corner of the slum.
"Aru intaky movie unnadi meeru andaro randdi"( I believe I have said it correct meaning : 6 baje movie hai aap log aaiye) became the caption for our evening. We even had people staring and laughing at us -the way some of us(non-telugu) pronounced it, but the message went across aptly.
The movie started at 6:20 pm. The people turned in decent numbers. We had hardly started the movie "Swadesh" when light started to create problems. Nikhil and Raj had to run multiple times to get extension cords and bulbs etc. Santosh ,Nishant and friends( I am really sorry I forgot their names L,u know 8085 processor hai mera ) and Gangadhar were continuously trying to keep the enthu alive amongst children and adults.Incessant effort by all the volunteers helped us to start the movie with renewed vigor.
Our problem had hardly been resolved when free dinner at a nearby Ganesh pandal played the spoilsport and people changed their directions. We came up with an idea to screen a telugu movie to attract them. The dedicated volunteers left no stone unturned to cajole people once again to come for the movie. The Pandal people were really helpful and they requested everyone to go for the movie after their dinner.
I believe this drive helped us to learn a lot of things and will help us to take precautionary measures in future.
In between the movie we had an interval, which involved screening of a few Education awareness videos and a brainstorming session with the adults and children. We educated the adults to send their children regularly to school, not only to make them literate, but also to help them develop as much more respectful citizens. We requested children not to drop out of school in between and urged the adults to implement the same. We also came across a few problems regarding improvement in the quality and dedication of teachers.
This session proved to be fruitful, may not be to our expectations, but I believe at least this helped us to raise awareness amongst these people and they will enlighten others with our message.
Finally, we all packed up at around 10:00 pm and went to have burgers at Sarvy.
I believe through this campaign, we have been able to enlighten people about their responsibility towards the society and serve their bit to the society, raise awareness amongst slum residents regarding Sanitation/Hygiene, enlighten people about the benefits of Education and last but not the least bring smiles on some faces at least.
I take the pleasure to thank all of the volunteers to make this campaign so successful. Kudos Guys and Gals !!!!
Surya and Kranthi ,thanks a lot for ur cooperation for making this work. Surya, with all the General Arrangement from printing to getting water you deserve a lot more than an applause from all of us buddy !!!
I seriously couldn't have imagined a team better than this J
Some of the things I would never forget during the campaign:
The enthu of gol-gappa walas to fullaofy the balloons.
The shrieks of girls whenever a balloon burst.
Sudeep and Vasanth surrounded by a lot of balloons.
Jyoti and Sreenu smartly slipping in our bottles of Mazaa inside Eat Street.
I and Aparna standing in the rain with samosas and sandwiches and people approaching us if those were free or for sale?
Aparna standing with a garbage bag and a person asking her if he can donate something.
The way I and Ramesh had to run when the police van came to pick up bikes parked in non-parking areas L
Tanvi tokkofying me whenever I said Guys !! ( and not Gals )
Jyoti feeling embarrassed whenever I used to look at her while discussing about refreshements.
Aninda and I struggling to finish our food and unsurprisingly we were the last ones.
The idea of cleaning cow dung proposed by one of the volunteers.
Tanvi, Sunil and Santosh not having drinks before finishing their backbreaking work of cleaning the Government School.
Madhura, Nishant and I struggling to learn some telugu words and the stares from the residents. I had to face a lot of them L and sometimes I was even intimidated when people came out of the room leaving me thinking if I've spoken the correct things.
Our wait for Gangadhar to come back when he fooled us by taking Raj's bike for a ride.
Calling up Jyoti at 11:30 in the night to wish her happy b'day and her reaction when asked to pick us up from a place nearby her home.
I can definitely say these were some of the best days of my life in Hyderabad and Keep up the Good Work !!!!
Hope to see some good and weird pics, Dhananjay ,Aparna, Tanvi and Sudeep J.
I would request all of you to join the googlegroup Pankhudi_gvd@googlegroups.com so that we all can keep in touch. I will also create an orkut group for better communication.
One more thing yaaron, I have resigned from Oracle and I will be leaving Hyderabad on October 1st. Please don't worry about the finances, I will get everything in place and will let everyone know as soon as the reimbursements come. I would definitely miss all of you..
Hope to keep in touch with everyone.
This is written by my friend kunal..who is now residing in chennai.....miss u yaar.....
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