About “Team Everest”:

An animated picture of Kartheeban with one of the students

Everest is a volunteer driven group set up by Kartheeban in 2006. The group’s main focus is on education. The group also supports some orphanages and old-age homes. Major activities are:

• Increase motivation levels of government school students.
• Financially support poor students so that no one stops studying due to lack of money

They conduct activities at schools such as puppet shows, moral classes, art, dance, etc. They even travel to remote places for a day or two over weekends to serve schools there.

The group has around 3,500 volunteers on record and a majority of them work with Cognizant Technology Solutions.

Background:

Kartheeban hails from the Tiruvannamalai district of Tamil Nadu. He grew up in a rural environment till his primary schooling and moved to Chennai to complete his schooling. Post his engineering, he has been with Cognizant since 2006. Having been in a techie for a while, he has moved over to be a part of Cognizant’s CSR division.

First-Steps:

Kartheeban with Volunteers

He was moved by his schoolmates struggling even for nominal fees and basic amenities like books and pencils. Most of their parents were farmers or coolies and some unfortunate had only a single parent. Some of his mates even worked post-school to supplant their parents’ income and make both ends meet.

During his final year of engineering he decided to help the under-privileged especially in the area of education. His mother, headmistress of a school in a remote village, suggested him to start from that school. He along with 3 of his friends collected funds and sponsored books and uniforms to the school. That was the genesis of the Team Everest.

Achievements:

From the humble beginning in 2006 with 4 friends, today Everest counts nearly 3,500 volunteers.

In 2007, they chose 1 school from each of the 31 districts in Tamil Nadu and distributed motivational prizes to top rankers in that school. The schools were selected from referrals of Everest volunteers.

In 2008, they conducted talent competitions – ‘TalHunt’ across corporation, panchayat and government schools. The group ideated that many students do not participate for the fear of not winning so they decided to give certificates to not only winners but all those who participated. The message was that winning is not always important. The results were phenomenal. Participation levels boosted from 20% to 75% of a school’s strength. Some of the school principals were astonished at the high participation levels. By the end of the program 110,000 students from 385 schools in 4 states had participated. For many of the kids, it was their first achievement and their parents’ joy was beyond bounds.

In addition many schools have been adopted. Kartheeban quotes the example of one such school, a government school in Pallavaram, Chennai. Before Everest stepped in, the school had a poor graduation percentage of 42% among 12^th standard students. The school had poor blackboards, improper hygiene and lacked some basic infrastructure. Everest volunteers in addition to solving those issues interact regularly with the students and explain any academic doubts. As a result, the graduation percentage has risen.

Innovation:

ü  Communal Volunteering

Everest is built on a unique “communal” volunteering concept. Volunteering opportunities can be identified by any member and other members in the group sign-up if it fits their interest as well. In fact, of the 700 events conducted by Everest so far, 90% have been based on volunteer ideas and referrals. All the members are empowered to initiate an activity or adopt a school. As a result members get to contribute in their way and they remain highly motivated.

Kartheeban counts this as the biggest factor for the rapid growth of the team. In spite of no efforts or advertising to enroll members, people wanting to volunteer join because of word-of-mouth from friends and colleagues.

ü  Spreading Moral Values

Team Everest Volunteer

The group has targeted to spread moral values to children in 6-12 grades through their school heads. They first published a book of 100 1-page write-ups written by the volunteers in Tamil. These books were distributed through the District Educational Officer to school heads. The heads were oriented on the objective of the exercise and requested to narrate one write-up a day at the school assembly. The short and simple stories in their native language drove the moral message home to the children. Riding on the success of the initiative in one program, Everest plans to launch it in other districts as well.

Message:

Kartheeban’s message to all: “Volunteer at least once in a month”. He believes that India will be a great nation only if its citizens are socially responsible as in Japan. Just like a visit to a temple or going for a movie, some amount of social service will give great personal satisfaction and help the country.

To NGOs he suggests from personal experience that raising volunteers from a closed group like colleagues, housing society, club members, etc has been much more effective and sustainable. The group trusts its members and will contribute better than a diverse set of individuals.

Parvathy Narayanan

Background:

Parvathy holds degrees in M.S.W (Master of Social Work) and B.Com. She chose this track because she wanted to be in an on-field job, not to be limited to a desk job and bogged down by theory. She was greatly attracted by the fact that as much as 50% of her MSW course was out-door, experiential learning.

First-Steps:

Post her MSW, she joined CAPART (Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology), a Delhi-based autonomous funding agency under the purview of the Ministry of Rural Development and was involved in Rural Development projects. She worked for a year in the District Collectorate, Erode, Tamil Nadu, followed by a year at the CAPART headquarters in Delhi on project management activities and finally spent a year with an NGO involved in natural resource management at Nilakottai in Dindigul district, Tamil Nadu. While at Nilakottai, she started Aspire Foundation, an NGO focused on education.

Current Role:

She has been associated with Aid India for over 3 years now. She enjoys her association with Aid India for the rich learning environment and flexibility provided with projects. She has the freedom to research, experiment, make mistakes and improve. Also, the diverse backgrounds & experiences of people involved and their high enthusiasm levels add to up to a positive and encouraging atmosphere.

She is part of a 5-member team that is developing content for English primary education with special focus on improving reading and speaking skills. They have been running a pilot project in 50 schools in 2 districts in Tamil Nadu. Through continuous refinement and experiments, they have developed a special one-on-one evaluation method to study the impact of their programs. They have simplified their program and evaluation mechanism with the aim to scale it up to make their model replicable across a larger set of schools.

Memorable Moments:

In her journey so far, her most memorable moment has been starting her own organization, Aspire Foundation. She recounts that she felt a need and set out to fulfill it. She adds that one does not have to wait and be totally prepared to take the plunge. It is better to get started and fine-tune later. She was motivated by the overwhelming response from exuberant children and their parents, when her organization brought them into the fold of its first education scholarships.

There have been memorable moments during her work with Aid India. Once such instance is when an inspired teacher in a Government school in Vellore district made effective use of the English program to demonstrate that poor children studying in a Government school were capable of speaking English well and this demonstration brought 15 students who had joined private schools back into the fold of his school! I was very happy that we were able to provide this highly motivated teacher a tool to provide quality education to students in his village.

Challenges:

One of the biggest challenges she faced working in rural areas, was the perception rural folk had of her as an “urban” social worker. It took her a while and lot of good work to prove herself and connect with them. Another hurdle to be cleared is getting accustomed to the way of life in interior places without the basic amenities taken for granted in cities. Initially, she did face a bit of reluctance from her parents regarding the career path of MSW she had chosen. But over the years, they have been very supportive and are now proud of the work she does.

About the Indian social sector in general, she points out that smaller NGOs continue to face funding issues. Funding organizations are hesitant to support programs designed by smaller NGOs who are yet to prove themselves. These NGOs in turn are more often than not, forced to take up pre-designed projects to sustain themselves.

Message:

Her greatest learning she would like to share with other organizations is that no solution is a permanent solution. The environment continuously keeps changing and so should our solutions.  One has to keep abreast of the target set to track how it is evolving. For example, while working with children, one has to study the influence of external media on the way children perceive and learn. She strongly feels that like-minded organizations networking among each other and share their learning and best practices is a good idea. This would lead to better effectiveness of projects and people would not have to re-invent the wheel every time.

Also, she encourages others to collaborate with Aid India, on her program or other programs. She is looking forward to collaborate with other bodies and individuals.

Her message to volunteers is to be clear with what role they would like to play. She suggests that volunteers research about their organizations and meet up to discuss role and expectations before committing to a cause. She adds that if volunteers can be clear & candid about their availability, be it for a day, a week or a month, NGOs can map them accordingly. That way NGOs and volunteers can make the most effective use of their time, resulting in a win-win situation.

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Interviewer Manik Vinnakota

Ms Dheepam

Name Ms. Dheepam S

Contact To contact Dheepam S, please send a mail to profiles@ngogateway.com

Organization iVolunteer (www.ivolunteer.in)

One-liner Dheepam has moved on form the corporate world to the social sector and manages the iVolunteer operations in Chennai

Background: Dheepam is a Textile engineer from Anna University and worked as an apparel designer with a large Italian outfit. She followed it up with a part-time MBA from Loyola College. Before she stepped in to the social sector, she was totally indulged in the corporate grind and confesses that she did not even remotely have plans of changing tracks.

First-Steps: She had taken a break from her corporate career during her MBA program. During this period she happened to get engaged with a microfinance institution that her brother was working with. While, she was collecting testimonies from the beneficiaries of the microfinance, she was moved by the change small amounts of money produced in the lives of the poor. She quotes the example of a lady who having borrowed 5000 rupees to purchase 4 cycles and rent them out, was able to lead a respectable life. Moved by the impact she saw she could produce in people’s lives, she decided to plunge in to the social space.

Current Role: She has been associated with iVolunteer for around 4 months now. She enjoys her association with iVolunteer for the opportunity provided to work with a large set of NGOs and volunteers and help achieve greater good. Also she has flexibility with planning her time and work areas. The flat structure of the organization is another positive for her as she can even talk directly to the director of the organization, a privilege she did not have in the corporate world.

As a relationship manager, she interacts with the three constituencies of Volunteers, NGOs and Corporate organizations. Her main focus is in spreading the awareness of volunteering opportunities and the need for volunteers. She understands that most people who want to volunteer face the hurdles of not knowing where to begin and how to go about it. She helps get people get over these hurdles. Currently she is targeting colleges in Chennai such as Loyola and MCC to raise volunteering awareness. She plans to soon visit and expand iVolunteer reach to Coimbatore as well.

Memorable Moments: Of all she has done and seen so far, she is extremely inspired by the altruistic and benevolent nature of the person running Shelter Home in Chennai. It is a home for HIV+ infected children and currently 26 children are taken care of at the facility. She points out that the children are given good care and appear very cheerful and healthy. But he funds all this out of his own earnings where as his wife’s earnings take care of the family expenses. She adds that even though all his attempts at raising funds have not been fruitful, he marches on.

Another recent event that has moved her is the celebrations of Grand Parents’ day on September 13th. She organized the celebrations at Sevalaya, an old-age home and an orphanage. She was amazed at the extremely exuberant attitude of the grandparents. They merrily sang and danced and one grandpa aged 75 delivered a famous dialogue of a very old Tamil movie Manohara. She was elated that she could make a difference and bring a smile to all that day.

Challenges: She observes that NGOs continue to face funding issues. The issue is complicated by some corporate organizations that are hesitant to support programs without any direct benefit to them and count them as ‘dead investment’. Also, unlike their larger counterparts, smaller NGOs do not have the know-how of funding opportunities and preparing quality documentation to qualify for existent funding.

Message: Dheepam appeals to all to take out at least 1 hour out of their week and give it back to the society; that way, she says, we can spread a lot of happiness and smiles. Massive number of volunteers is required to aid community betterment. She advises to take the plunge into volunteering without too much analysis assuring that any cost will be overshadowed by much greater benefit.

She would like to send out the message to all NGOs that iVolunteer is there to help NGOs on multiple avenues be it in raising volunteers, providing publicity to NGOs efforts or arranging volunteer management sessions.

She appreciates the effort of all the current volunteers.  She encourages them to bring to volunteering the same professionalism and commitment they take to their regular work. For example, in case a volunteer is unable to make an NGO an appointment, she requests the volunteer to inform the concerned. Such measures would go a long way in improving NGO-Volunteer relationships.

About iVolunteer: iVolunteer is an initiative of MITRA and is working to create a volunteering movement in India. iVolunteer sees its role as that of a catalyst, which will create happy volunteering experiences for both volunteers and non-profit organizations. In order to create happy volunteering experiences, iVolunteer works through its Volunteer Centers across India and various Non-profit partners to a create a volunteering infrastructure that will reduce the time and cost of recruiting volunteers and there by making it easier for volunteers to make a difference in their local community.

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Interviewer Manik Vinnakota