It was no sooner than now, when i realized of having not blogged till date, for the past month.I thought it would be a regular activity but somehow in the past month i just completely forgot about it. Maybe it was because of intern or surely it was.It was never thought before about really getting involved in some practical exposure after all the herculean preparations that accounted for 3 years.I had little idea about it during the vacations.Then it struck my mind that i asked Mr. Anshu Gupta sir for an internship in vacations and thought of at last joining it. Somehow i felt that it would be pretty constructive to do and would learn something for sure.
With suspection of the activities i would be involved in the caude of doing something good and no idea aftermath my joining, i turned up to the office of Goonj. Initially i was asked to visit the processing center so as to get a glimpses of how Goonj operates. Although i did all the initial research, googled every bit possible about Goonj as well as attended the guest lecture of sir in IITR during E-Summit.However, the visit to the processing centre was an alltogether not as same as that i had read.The innovative ideas being implemented, the well managed resources, which may be meagre , but the skill with which resourcefulness was being used was simply best.
The whole process constitutes ------> Collection of items and all household stuffs at the processing center, sorting the products in their respective sections.By sections i mean clothes, grocery items, books, medical and electronic appliances and all!!.Also the most amazing part is about the team members who do them.All of them are either the bearers of domestic violence, or the widows with no financial support, even the disabled.The workforce is no herd of well skilled labour but as i mentioned, its the resourcefulness and not the resources that counts in this organization.
With very few resources and almost no man power we were given tasks which we never thought we would end up doing. Organizing 6 camps was a tedious task but the things that we learnt in the end were immense. We had high hopes and also experimented a lot as well in different camps but the lack of volunteers, resources added to our misery but we did all those possible things that we never imagined. From making up the envelopes ready to use to making profiles , pasting labels, dispatching envelopes, making calls, getting scolded, doors smashed on our face, questioned by police(not in chowki but on road), meeting kabadiwalas, convincing people, pasting posters and what not in the summer of delhi. WE FACED IT ALL and believe me it was not funny and initially we were not even willing or thought of doing it. But in the end we did it all.
The tasks were mundane as well as huge. We were tired like hell every day and still knew that we have to turn up next day as well. Initial response was not encouraging and there were lot of negatives as well that could have made us QUIT. A fellow intern did quit whose name i don't even remember, some volunteers turned up and did their part and went. Even though after facing such things we completed the task and to list the positives it gave us a sense of thought to be hell!!! crazy and optimistic, managing things at a very small level, patience and learned things which i could not have if not gone through the process.
But all is well that ends well and yeah the fruits were good after having a very successful camp.
P.S :- In all the majority of the tasks and camps i was helped by Ankit Kedia ( of NIT Rourkela) , Garima Kaushik ( of Sri Venkateshwara College, DU) which equally shared the work and responsibility and were of great help and team work.
