Hi, Yaswanth; can you tell us about yourself and brief us on how you joined Bhumi?
Hi I am Yaswanth from Anna Nagar, Chennai; I’m an inventory coordinator of Lakshya Project in Kolathur centre. I’m working in TCS Chennai; and I was introduced to Bhumi by my College NSS Unit friends who are active volunteers of Bhumi. Then just as every other person I attended an orientation and stuff; and I have been in Bhumi for past 2-3 months.
So in this 2-3 months journey with Bhumi what do u like about it?
The organizational structure; a non-profit N.G.O. with such a well planned structure made me like it. The strategizing perspective is awesome; even being simple Group Activities in centers are well planned in pre-planning sessions including the inventories; and the final documentation.
And the Commitment of other volunteers; all these together become a motivational factor encouraging fellow volunteers. Even after these days the dedication of the founder and old volunteers is very good.
Is there any particular volunteer (No Restrictions) who has inspired you? If yes, who is that and what trait in the person was the reason?
Yes. It is Raghu. Being an anchor he organizes the whole team well. He is very compassionate and resorts to ask all volunteers their opinions on howsoever small the issue may be. That and the socializing attitude of Raghu and Sri Vidya towards the kids and fellow volunteers is a motivational factor for me and I feel I have to improve a bit on the socializing factor; so that way they inspire me.
In that case; do you have any memorable moments as a volunteer? If so, can you share it with us?
A lot; I remember the smiles of the kids back home; which is one big memorable moment for me. If you ask moments with the volunteers; we had a planning session in Valluvar Kottam Park and then later joined for a chat in a nearby juice shop. There are a few facebook moments too. Some funny stories on how inventories were collected in the past etc… I miss Nakshatra and the mentor training session too much. Because I was not available on Sunday; and since the training couldn’t be made on Saturday and Sunday; as per my request; I had to attend only the online version of it. Yet I miss those times a lot. But making the kids happy is the most memorable moment.
Just like that Request; do you have any Suggestions, opinions, appreciations you want to share with Bhumi as a whole?
All that I want to share is as a Lakshya volunteer of Kolathur centre; I have got an opportunity to speak with only those volunteers who have visited my centre; either to conduct sessions or watch them. Since I missed Nakshatra and I haven’t visited the other centers. We in our centre are planning for a help from the speak-out team in conducting English classes. So my suggestion would be a better inter communication platform for volunteers across projects; even across lakshyans.
Have you heard of Ripples? If yes, do you read it?
Yes I do. I even sent an article for ripples and it is yet not published. I just dunno why?
Since we get more than required articles for a particular month we put on hold a few articles and it just takes some time in getting published. I hope your article will soon adorn our pages. Do you have any suggestions for ripples?
Actually why doesn’t Ripples have a facebook group or something to get these feedback from us. One such group will also increase the communication factor said earlier. We will also respond there and have constructive discussions on the newsletter.
Well there are few closed facebook groups for the inter-volunteer communication purpose and all are welcome to communicate anything related to the projects, anytime. We have a dedicated discussion forum for ripples-team; as with the feedbacks you can always send them to the ripples team via the dedicated link provided; if you any doubts; you can feel free to contact the team anytime. So it is only in the way you choose to respond. This is just a fact I felt sharing and it was great time speaking with you Thank you.
(A hearty laugh) Thank you. I just got what you meant. So I now understand that a closed group alone could not serve the purpose. It was great time talking to you too. Bye.
(P.S. – Had you not said that you are from Anna Nagar; I would have concluded that you don’t know Tamil. Your accent was like that of a North-Indian. 🙂 )