In the month of November we were approached by 5 motivated college students. They wanted to make a difference to our programs with the schools. Their energy and enthusiasm added with the structured approach immediately impressed us.
Our role was to facilitate their reach out program where they create fundraising pages and meeting HNI’s to talk about the project. The target was to raise funds to setup a computer lab with 90 computers in 3 schools that we support in Mumbai.
This is a personal account by Prateek who headed the project :
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During the ideation of this model, I just wanted to help each section of society which is underprivileged in their own way. There are several problems in the society which need our undivided attention, but I believed that the greatest impact would have been made by empowering the nation’s future with technology.
The Project required extensive management, directing and implementation of well-defined plans. The time guarantee that we gave was the most pressurising but motivating factor, as the project could have failed at any point of time, thereby losing our investors’ money. We couldn’t afford to let that happen as it didn’t align with Mr. Warren Buffets’ rules of investing.
Getting large contribution from absolute strangers was one of the most challenging tasks as during the Festive Season, volunteer support was at an all-time low, thereby increasing the financial burden on the core team. To counter this challenge, we set up strict and specific guidelines to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the process which helped us sail through the fund raising.
The greatest advantage was that we were doing a selfless act and people believed that we were genuine in our cause with no ulterior motive.
As the head of the Project, words fail me in expressing our deepest gratitude to our teachers, mentors and partners: Paramjeet Sir and Farheen Ma’am who have been a constant source of guidance and inspiration for us. If I had to describe the overachieved success in a single word, it would be “Team-Effort” as it would just not have been possible to do this without them.
Pratik Malhotra: Chairperson
This is an account from the Project Saffron Team :
Project Saffron has been an invigorating opportunity for us to give back to society.
From finding benefactors, making sure that contributions received are put to good use, to maintaining complete transparency, it has been quite a gargantuan task.
Improving the quality of education for the children and updating essential IT infrastructure for the school was the main goal of the project, and we challenged ourselves to a one-month timeline to complete it. Looking at how elated the children felt was heart warming, and the biggest indication of the success of this very ambitious project.
Our eyes were opened to the various quirks, virtues and pitfalls of the local education system.
We were put in situations that helped us build our character, and hone various essential skills, and we have emerged as better human beings.
Ritwik Basu: Admin Head
Navid Gowani: Tech. Head
Prachi Kothari: Accounts Head
Drishti Punjabi: P.R Head
