Silver Jubilee Celeb @ GBH Bng

Praveen & Shahnaz

 

CS Bangalore – ‘The Way’ group celebrated Silver Jubilee successful relocation. This is a great achievement our team has achieved in a short span of 4 months. This would never have been possible without our key strengths and friends. Congratulations to all our key players Sanjay, Santosh, Rahul, Deepak, Shiuli, Shahanaz, Jagannath and all Chennai CS The Way volunteers who helped our group to reach this count. Keep the spirit up guys!

This is the first grand celebration of our team in Government Reception Centre for Boys Bangalore. To celebrate this event, our team discussed with the probationary officers in Govt Home and planned for Drawing Competition, Snacks distribution, Prize distribution, Thanksgiving with Sports Kit for all the kids. It took some 15 days time to conclude on a date for celebration but finally… we could set it March 22^nd.

Boys in action

All our volunteers were too eager and happy to take up some or the other responsibility for this day. With some misfortune two days before our grand day, one of our volunteer Thamizh met with a minor accident in Chennai and was in a dilemma on how to make it for the day. He took up the responsibility of our entire drawing kit. Thanks Shahanaz for taking up this responsibility and making all arrangements done in a day.  Thanks Thamizh for joining us this event even after taking pain and for bearing torture from kids in your hands. Thanks Shiuli for taking up the responsibility of Sports Kit and Snacks Items with help of your friends.

Sunday March 22nd, 2009!

The day arrived where in to share these festivities for the celebration for Silver Jubilee Successful Relocation with our team, some supporter friends and some Chennai volunteers could make it the day, and we were all set with the curriculums and plans.

Foodie

The day started with shouting and running behind kids to make them sit silently in a row (sounds funny, well… not silently) which took almost half an hr to 45 mins. And to make this “noise control” possible, some of our volunteers took lots of pain. I am sure; all our volunteers would have finished almost 2-3 bottles of water after reaching home, and some might have got throat pain.

To start up with the first program, Shahnaz and all our team were all set with drawing kit ready.  We made groups of five to six kids in each group and started distributing charts, pencils, erasers and later colors to each. The children’s started making skillful drawings and the environment soon became hosh –posh where someone’s pencil got broken or some other person did not get eraser. All our volunteers helped the kids a lot in getting all what they want and to bring down the environment calm. This was tougher because the kids’ strength here is more than 210.

By the time this Drawing competition gets over; Sairam group arrived who are our little champs’ fans. Sairam is an

Venky

 organization who is involved in teaching Devotional Songs –Bhajans, conducting Personality Development tuitions, conducting games and giving frequent weekend Snacks, Meals for these kids. Then, our little champs became little Tigers shouting at the top of their voice – Sairam, Sairam, Sairam… This became a tough time for us to control this Tiger crowd.. Being cooperative enough, they helped us in controlling these kids.

By this time, almost one and half hour was over of conducting the drawing program and we brought it to a forceful end, where some enthusiastic kids were been forced to stop drawing as they were doing for 2^nd or 3^rd rotation.

The finish of this contest was even more awesome where our group took a tough time to conclude on the most difficult part of the competition i.e. to judge on these creative arts and mind blowing drawings. After lots of discussion n’ confusion, our drawing master Praveen and all others could come to a conclusion in which the score was tied and the winner was undecided “the confusions got settled with the record of 3*4 winners and a Special prize by Praveen”. 1^st category of winner was for Pencil Art, 2^nd category was for Color Pencil Art, 3^rd category for Sketch Art and 4^th was for Creative Art Category.

At the same time, half of our group were setting up with Snacks distribution making all arrangements ready and to help this event, we were been guided and helped by the wardens, security chiefs and Superintendent a lot.

Hanu

All our volunteers helped the kids come in queue with their washed plates and hands to take up the delicacies from our lined volunteers, each ready with one item. They were been asked to sit in a queue in a Hall where the kids were waiting for the entire crowd to come in and sit with their plates before starting up eating. Just thought in mind, when I was in their age group, I always waited for my plate to be filled and sometimes before that itself started eating. How cum these small kids can wait for another 200 kids before starting the food even though food is in front and stomach in hunger! This is the first time; we have seen the entire crowd sitting so silently in rows. How come the tigers became Rabbits??? Once the Hall got filled with all the kids in, with their food plates, they started praying God with their melodious songs and sweet humming voice. Really awesome guidance by the security chiefs and wardens.

Then, so sad… selfish enough we still did not allow the kids to eat food because we did not wanted to take the risk to control the kids making them sit together for prize distribution. So we started with the prize distribution, and for this we called upon the

Fishy

Superitendent, Probationary Officer, Security Chiefs and Wardens on the stage to give away the prizes. Sanjay, Praveen and Yashpal did all announcements and conducted the prize giving ceremony with the help of Shahnaz, Shiuli, Tulasi, Rahul, Swaroop; who were being helped by all other volunteers.

Three winners from each category (4) with Prizes (4*3) named 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd won Tennis Balls and one Special Prize by Praveen won packet full of 24 pens sketch. These prizes were being presented by our Probationary Officer, Wardens and Security Chiefs. Lastly, Sports Kit which included one Basket and Two Balls was being presented by our Superintendent. All kids and volunteers applauded for each winner and encouraged them. Finally…. Long time awaiting food n’ kids hunger came to an end when they had the delicacies

Titanic

To bring the celebration to an end, we distributed Snacks to all our Security Chiefs, Wardens, Officers, Superitendent, Workers, Sairam Group and of course how can we forget our exhausted volunteers.

Thanks all for bringing this celebration a success this day… This would never be so successful without each and every volunteer’s help. Special thanks to IMRB International and VKARE Association members.

We wish the same spirit from all our volunteers and supporters, for all events we’ll have in future.

Good job guys! Keep this spirit up always!

 

 

Pic

They also supported for a mentally challenged person’s operation. Chk out the links for more information

http://vkare.in/gbh_visit.html

http://vkare.in/jhumris_gallery.html

http://vkare.in/ghb_visit_gallery.html

 

Neerav – Getting Relocated Thyself

 

Neerav

Neerav Kumar Varshney, the outstanding and Mr. Consistent, was waiting for his Delhi transfer for a very long time and had got it finally. Feb 12,  2009 could be the punctuation to this Chennai chapter or might just be a comma.  He felt that this was his last chance to visit my house and to have a nice south Indian food. Well, I fulfilled his wish the penultimate day of his departure to his hometown.

 

Neerav, the motivator and the senior most, has been with GBH since its inception. He had a break due to his on-site commitments and joined GBH immediately as soon as he came from on-site. This dynamic personality has relocated lots of kids in his innovative way in these years. His advice, lectures, mentoring, administration, coordination & motivation skills have profound values. (Undoubtedly his lectures 🙂 ) . The mutual support between us made us to overcome many issues.

Neerav, a versatile personality, has an innovative approach in relocating kids; people who had got a chance to have seen his relocation sheet would have nothing to regret. Every relocation sheet would be a 2 page dossier with maps and information. He introduced the concept of sending letters (as I remember) to village heads and officers. His commitment should never be left unnoticed. Personally, I cudn’t forget the midnight meeting with him & Sai @ Chn 1’s Barrista drinking the cold coffee and discussing abt GBH. 

As a mark of respect and as a token of friendship, we decided to present him a souvenir. 12th Feb 2009, We reached the railway station before he reached. Thanks to Archie and Tanmoy who gave the idea and bought the gift. The man who gonna  lose his bachelor degree, came to the railway station 20 mins before departure. His friends had accompanied him and were setting things ready for the travel. We could get the last 5 mins, where we presented our memento and clicked some snaps.

It was a moment of mixed emotions. Wishing the great man, all the best, in all his future endeavours and hopefully Delhi GBH comes live thru him ;-).

 

GBH Painting Season II

Hello All,

Here comes the story of happenings @ GBH this weekend. Our plan for this weekend was to paint the second hall in the relocation center. As planned, I got 5kg of Ivory Distemper paint (Asian paints) and reached GBH sharp at 9.30. Unlike any other weekend, guys reached a bit early this time at 9.45 am. After a short discussion, we quickly got in to the work.

Sujan Only giving pose. Not working 😉

Surprisingly, three new volunteers (Sujan, lavanya and Surendra) turned up this week and they gave a very big helping hand in painting activity. While we started painting the hall, others continued their relocation activities. As usual, Mukund was shouting all the time to grab the attention of those kids and to update the corresponding details in the Master Tracker and Archana was acting as instructor/mentor/boss for all those who are painting the walls. Thanks to those two kids from GBH, Nurul and Vijay, who helped us alot in this activity. After two and half hours of effort, we are finally done with painting the entire hall succesfully. Thanks to every one that are involved in completing this mission. We wish to have the same cooperation in our relocation activities too.

Charan. Professionally ready to paint.

This activity will be the first step towards our goal to maintain the sanitation and cleanliness at GBH. We hope to initiate many more similar activities to improve the things at GBH. The question “What are all those activities?” is open to all. Pls post us back some suggestions on improving the conditions at GBH.

Meet You all Next week.

GBH Painting Pics:

http://picasaweb.google.com/csrtheway/PaintingGBH12#5287460685140818866

Cheers,

Durga Prasad.

 

GBH – Best CS Activity I have ever done

Hi Friends….

 

This blog is a long pending activity from me…At last I am here to write my experiences in GBH…

 

GBH…The first and the best CS Activity I have ever involved myself…

 

In fact I can remember that I joined this activity in the year 2005 when Arun Ramamurthy, Neerav,Abdul Qadir,Mukund and all were doing this very seriously. I visited the GBH for few weeks regularly and as usual after some three months I escaped to another CS activity. In fact at that time lot of things were happening at GBH apart from relocation. There were some classes on Yoga, Computer Classes etc..Later Origami classes were also started by one of the volunteers. Everything went on smoothly until Arun got his onsite opportunity. Suddenly there was a setback to the activities at GBH. As the famous OM SHANTI OM dialogue goes…Every Story has a Happy ending.If the end is not an happy one…then Picture baki hi….The same applied here….Our Commander In Chief Mukund emerged from the Horizon.I need to say a point very strongly “Arun and Mukund have always acted as the backbones to this activity at GBH. Without them, it would have been a different show altogether.

 

My Second Innings

 

My second innings started again few months back, though I was a silent spectator of the activities that happened at GBH.(To be frank, even now I am less active compared to the other soldiers of GBH).This time,Mukund gave me the assignment of spreading a word about GBH and getting more volunteers for the relocation activity. I started doing it with more enthusiasm and got more volunteers into this activity. But the main problem we faced was the consistency of the visit of the volunteers. We could not get the volunteers visit the home regularly week after week. Then with the help of Sunitha Prasad of USAA, we were able to reach more associates and spread more details about GBH. In this process, we got dedicated volunteers like Charan Singh,Durga Prasad,Mahesh, Lavanya, Venkat and many others.

 

My First Relocation

 

I believe that I have relocated some 5-6 kids in the few visits that I have made to GBH. But I cannot forget the first relocation that I made, which was really interesting. I was asked to relocate a local kid from Tamilnadu. So I started speaking with him and enquired him about the address and other details. As usual the kid did not remember the address. So I started enquiring him about his school and the other key points like theatres or any landmarks near his house. But with whatever limited details he gave us I could not trace out any location in Chennai.(in fact I was not able to confirm that he was from Chennai) .Then at last one question made a very big difference. The town bus he would take to go to school from his house. This small detail really helped us track this. I wanted to close this relocation the same day, as I know my level of sincerity and dedication I put in when I push the activity to the next day.

 

So I directly went to CMBT and checked with few conductors and tried relating the area to the bus route. Initially the conductors we enquired could not recognize this place, but at last one conductor gave me the hint that the area might be near the Central Railway Station. Again I went back to the Choolai area near Central and enquired the place with our Auto drivers. They were able to guide me easily to that place. The area was a Telugu dominant area and luckily I could manage with my Telengana Telugu J .When I checked with few Bench sitters at the Tea shop, they immediately identified the kid and directed me to the kid’s house. On reaching the house, I was surprised to see the reception. I was given a special chair to sit with one special Fanta ordered for me. J Then I informed the family about the GBH and its address and asked them to get the kid from GBH on Tuesday. I was so happy to see the response of the kid’s parents and the jubilant mood of the total area when they realized that the lost kid was found out. That particular moment gave me the best personal satisfaction, I can ever expect from such an activity.

 

Why GBH is Special to me????

 

I have involved myself in various CS activities like visiting orphanages and supporting the needy. But this GBH relocation has always been special to me. The main reason for this is the personal satisfaction that you get when you realize that you have made a difference in a kid’s life by finding and reuniting him to his family. Just check the faces of the parents when you first inform them about their son’s whereabouts, you can see million emotions running in them.

Every relocation that we handle is a treasure hunt. The kid we enquire gives us different hints about the location of the house. We put all these pieces together and we google/orkut it out to find out his address…sometimes we even contact the police of that area to find out the kid’s house. We strain ourselves for hours to find out the kid’s home. But all these pain would fly away in a moment when you could see the joy in the kid’s face when you inform him that he is going to meet the parents and get back to his house. I strongly believe in a point that…The kid at GBH leads a life of an orphan…. even though his parents are there and his parents want him to be back with them. It is just few hours of our effort in relocating this kid, which really makes a difference which no other activity can make to that kid.

 

With more volunteers pouring in, I think we can make such big difference in more lives in the coming days. And never forget that Even You can become Aamir Khan (of TZP) in any one of these Kid’s life.

 

With Love,

Laxmi Narayanan

 

Appreciation Letter from the Punjab Association

Hi All,

I have been thinking to post this letter in our blog for a long time but due to some constraints it got delayed a bit. Finally, here it is, the one & only appreciation which we got from the Punjabi association for relocating Sona singh.

The Punjabi association wrote letters to the Chief Minister’s office (Punjab) to help this child but their efforts went in vain.  The boy was somehow lost and boarded a chennai train. He landed @ Chennai during the mid of 2007 and was staying almost an year in GBH. Thanks to the efforts taken by Amrit, Anuj, Charan, his father to relocate him back to his hometown . The boy was transferred to Amristar this July 2008

Appreciation Letter

Thanks to the Punjabi association, and to Mr. Arun Raj, Probation Officer, GBH for their motivation

 

GBH Meal prgm by Debu

Greetings to you all again!!!!!

Debatma Purkait of AIG, hailing from Kolkata sponsored lunch to the children @ GBH last week. Debu, one of our pillars of GBH (now @ onsite), was taking care of all the East India relocations. He had come for his vacation and called me up for the sponsor.

We spoke to the new superintendent, Mrs. Glory and she suggested the option to go for variety rice this time. It was Puliyodharai alias Puliyogare, Cocunut rice,curd rice with sambar, spicy potato curry,chips & pickle. The caterer sponsored Kesari on his behalf. Thanks to him!!!

It was just 20 mins, after that we could see only the empty utensils. Guys finished it up in style, who came out licking their fingers and thanked us for the meal.

Thanks to Debu & All………..

 More Pics on

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/csrtheway/GBHFoodSponsorDebatma#

 

GRC (GBH-Bng) – The first success !!!!

Dear All,
Greetings!

The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. Nice to express my happiness and achievement on the first successful relocation of a kid named – Shikandar.

It is my immense pleasure to share my experience with you all.
Government Reception Centre for Boys, near Nimhans, Bangalore is the place where we landed up searching for the same assignment we were carrying out in Chennai i.e., kids relocation activities.
The very first day of my visit to this place was a problem for me to understand the local dialect of the non-official members as it was Sunday, so no official staffs were there.
Next visit was with some of my colleagues on Saturday. We were been welcomed by the Superintendent and other official members when we introduced ourselves and told about the CS activities we were been carrying out. Eyes became warm and relaxed seeing the well condition and organised care and maintenance of the home, because then only I could realize the big difference between the two homes in Chennai and Bangalore. This place is far better than Chennai Govt Boys Home. Food, Clothing, Hygiene is really good which is being well provided by Bangalore Govt. Then, I felt it’s true to say, there is always room at the top! When asked for their need for the home, they told some of their big demands like – Ambulance, Basketball Court and some Kitchen Utensils for those kids. With my personal opinion, I didn’t want to start up any activity with such kind of major financial help… may be in long run, depends on funds! When we asked for the relocation activities, the procedures and process we felt pretty much organised and we were been told that they are also getting helped by some NGOs. We wanted to know in detail so; we decided to visit again.
Next visit, we found, there is only 1 probationary officer here, which ideally should have a count of 4 but for good, we found the teachers of the GRC Boys School also doing the counselling of kids and helping the probationary officer. In terms of relocation of kids inside state, it’s really going on good here as it is very fast and they have got a good network and they follow some good procedures like announcements, calls, personal or escorts visit to the respective place to do this job inside state. Then, when asked for outside state kids, they said, they do relocate them to their respective state govt homes after some months and if in case, there parents could identify the place and kids, then they do claim by undergoing some procedures as like in Chennai Govt Home. At the same time, we got to know about some Volunteers from St. Joseph’s who are taking up this activity in counselling of kids and relocation. Then, we felt our job ends here as it’s going very smooth and so felt relaxed. But, before concluding on anything, some of our volunteers wanted to visit this place for few more time and then decide on something.
So we made a move last weekend and could found that, the volunteers of St. Joseph’s college were just doing their case studies as part of their study by counselling the kids, as they are psychology students (that’s also plays very important role) which plays a different role from relocating the kids. I felt sometimes the statements were very contradictory from person to person, may be because of change in versions ;).
As per Mrs. Vasantha (Probationary Officer) and Mrs. Geetha Patil (Superintendent) words, the basic need of this place is STD facility in a phone because for the outside state kids, they are not able to contact there parents even after the kid give them the address details and contact information. This is because with their own expense from cell phone, which becomes too expensive to help all kids. So they are just being sent after few months to their respective state homes. And the process gets delayed.
Within these few visits, we met and chatted with few kids here and also collected some information about their family and place, they belong to. We also did a small Diwali celebration here by distributing snacks to these small kids.

We took the information of few kids. Amongst them, one guy is Shikandar, age 12 yrs from Delhi. This Diwali when Sanjay went home, he was been motivated by a keen desire to do something for Shikandar. He had to take some pain, but with the strong mental attitude he could find this guy’s home and finally, reached out the correct place. His father is a Rickshaw puller. His parents started crying on listening about their kid, at the same time so happy that they were not able to express their heartfelt gratitude to Sanjay. Now, some dealings and some paper works and the kid Shikandar is all set to home.

The probationary officer, Teachers and Superintendent are very happy to see this kind of help and want us to continue the same in future moreover, for some special cases for which they want to maintain separate record especially for our volunteers.

Two 2 kids’ relocation are still in progress.

There are lots of persons who directly or indirectly helped us in achieving our first stepping stone towards Bangalore CS activity, GRCB.

Special Thanks to Mukund for who ignited the spirit within me to take up this work here in Bangalore, and helped me in getting some volunteers.
Sincere Thanks to Mr. Sridhar who helped me identifying the correct address of GRCs in such a short span.
Thanks Veena, Regan, Manjunatha, Ravindran, Santosh, Roopa, for your time and “to be continued” support.
Hats off Sanjay for your good n’ great work Wish to see at earliest your first experience in kid relocation in Bangalore in our blog

– Susrita.

 

GBH Bangalore

It’s a great joy to the GBH network. GBH Chennai has reached Bangalore and is expected to reach out to the other metros very sooooooon.  A special thanks to Susrita Mishra, who initiated the GBH activities @ Bangalore.

She recently relocated to Bangalore and had started her relocating activities @ Bangalore. Sanjay, Surita and some great members of the Bangalore CS team, visited GBH bangalore and had relocated a child.

Susrita’s words

This weekend we went to Govt Reception Centre for Boys. There we discovered some new things for the GRC for Boys and Girls. The kids from outside state needs some more assistance in terms of relocation as the volunteers of St. Jospeh’s are just doing their case studies as they are Psychology students and the kids or Probationary officers are not getting helped in their relocation. The most important need for those homes are STD facility in a phone. Santosh, the kids whom we found released last weekend, were all belonging to same state. Well the condition is far-far better then Chennai, but we continued starting up with some cases, whom we thought is special, and to our good news within the last two visit, we could able to relocate 1 kid – named Irfan. This is by one of our Volunteer – Sanjay. We distributed snacks, played and had a nice time with all those kids.
Seeing our work, Mrs. Vasantha, probationary officer over there wants us to continue our work and handle some special cases for outside state kids for which she wants to maintain a record especially for our volunteers. “

Our Best Wishes in All their endeavours

 

Diwali Celebrations @ GBH

flower pot

Guys rocked GBH again this Diwali!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I really feel unfortunate for those who missed the occassion. There weren’t any plans to celebrate Diwali @ GBH this year. The ever enthusiastic “Neerav” initiated it. I was in a double mind but finally Neerav’s interest won the game.

People

A mail was sent to all the associates. Since many have gone to Diwali, I had called up and confirmed the participants. Thanks to Narayanan; Mahesh who was accompanied by Tanmay and his colleague. I had requested Nagamathan & Sujan of GenRe to join us, which they agreed without any 2nd thoughts.  Archana with her friend from Satyam foundation had also participated in the GBH Diwali Mela – 2k8.

GBH would witness lots of visitors during festivals.  Alas! It was unfortunate to hear that no one came this time to meet them. We went on @ the right time to fill the dent.

Our associates were requested to assemble @ GBH by 4:00 pm. I and Neerav started the shopping by 2:30. We bought the usual flower pot & chakkars. Neerav got a chance to taste all the sweet @ Adyar Ananda bhavan to choose one for the children.  Mahesh(Mr. Punctual) was right @ the entrance of GBH @ 4:00. Narayanan, Sujan & Nag were waiting for us @ the beach station. We finally reached GBH by 4:30pm

Children were too enthusiastic to see us. We bought sweets for both the home and reception children. The home children had gone out for an outing. As the visit was unplanned, we had to get permission from the superintendent to burst the crackers. The guards were reluctant but finally managed to convince them.

Guards surrounded the place and the children came out of their room. They were made to sit in 4 lines. 4 children came out one by one and the guys helped out to light the chakkars. Whenever a flower pot was lighted, children shouted out “happy deepavali!!!!!!!!”. Everything went on fine until the last moment, when a boy escaped from the place.

In the mean time, Archana had gone out to buy new clothes to the children. After bursting out everything, the clothes were distributed to the children. The children were very happy and came forward to thank each one of us. Archana collected our signatures in a T-Shirt, to remember this juncture. People left GBH post 6:00, light heartedly.

Chk out the pics @ http://picasaweb.google.co.in/csrtheway