Upayn-
Gifts are something that everyone loves to receive! And if you receive something that you desperately need, the value of the gift increases a thousand fold.
With this thought in mind, we conceived the idea of holding various donation camps under a single roof. The idea is that anyone who has anything he or she wishes to give anyone in need, can come to us and we will collect it from him or her. These things are then donated to various other organizations such as orphanages, blood banks etc.
We hold such camps for the donation blood, eyes, skin, toys, clothes, medicines, books, e-waste (the extra, old mobile phones, chargers, computers), etc.
We have been conducting this project every year, for the last many years. The response of the people is highly enthusiastic and over-whelming. Over the years, we have been able to channelize these priceless gifts to hundreds of people, many of which gave the receivers a new lease of life or a new vision to see the world! These receivers many a times, come from the underprivileged strata of society and the gifts are a blessing for them!
We have been conducting this camp in Mumbai, Kolhapur, Nashik and various areas of Pune. Last year, we received donations from over 2000 generous souls!
Gramarthan-
A village is a building unit of society. 70% of the Indian population resides in villages across India. Most of the farmers live in the villages, with the farmlands nearby. These villages are where the most important resource of the country comes from- food grains.
Unfortunately, with the droughts and decline in agriculture, the people of the village come to cities – looking for employment, education, healthcare, etc. The population which feeds the country has started to depend on the big cities for basic amenities.
With the idea of giving back the dignity to the villages, we started the programme -Gramarthan- the process of empowerment of villages and making them self-sufficient.
This project runs with a five-capital agenda – physical, natural, social, human and financial betterment.
Integrating and uniting the villagers through social gatherings and different platforms; building the rapport of the villagers with the government bodies and authorities; health and water surveys; cleanliness drives with active participation of the villagers; health and hygiene camps; education camps are our long-term agenda.
Currently we are working on various projects under Gramarthan like Health & Hygiene ,Education,Women empowerment,”Swaccha Maze Gaon” and Water Management.
Few benchmarks –
- We have successfully completed building a small dam in Ranjane, Pabe Gha. The Republic Day marked the momentous first step towards the end of water problems in the Ranjane village! The construction of the dam is completed –capacity of 20lac lit water reservoir.
- Now four villages in Velhe Taluka (Ranjane,Kondgaon,Khamgaon,Ambed) are working for making the villages clean under project “Swaccha Maze Gaon”
Skool-falak-
Remember the school times, when once a year during poster competition, everyone used to bring hand-made posters about various amazing facts and stuff like that? It used to be a treat to read them, with much wonder!
To bring back that tradition, we have started a project called Skool-falak in which an 8ftX10ft board has been put up across 30 schools in Pune and is a huge hit amongst students!
Addition to this A1 size Skool-Falak is displayed across 50 schools in Pune and 5 schools from Villages.
With this Deepastambha Charitable Trust is associated with 85 schools in and around Pune
It is now frequently visited by the school students where they get precise information about various social, educational and technical topics. It helps to develop a research oriented attitude along with social cognizance which is of extreme importance in today’s world.
Skool-sansad-
The Sansad Bhavan or the Parliament House in Delhi is the sanctum sanctorum of Indian Democracy. Here, the most important and fate-changing decisions regarding the country’s future are taken. Every parliamentarian here comes with the backing of crores of people. Naturally, it is one of the most happening and important places of our country.
To give the school students a feel of what it is like to work in the Parliament, mock parliament or Skool-Sansad is organized, complete with debates, resolutions and bill voting. One of the major goals is to encourage a healthy and informed debate among the students regarding social issues of national importance. Not only does this promote personality development but it alse generates a huge level of social awareness in an impressionable age.
Who knows, one of the participants today may end up becoming a policy-maker of a better tomorrow!
Niramayaa-
Cleanliness is one of the basic indicators of a civilized society. Along with cleanliness of the surroundings, comes awareness about hygiene and health. Both are two sides of the same coin. Absence of clean surroundings can be detrimental to health. And absence of good health and hygiene can pollute the surroundings.
One of the major intentions in starting this project was to address every side of healthy living – clean surroundings and health awareness.
This project emphasizes on the importance of personal and public health. It aims at imbibing a healthy and hygienic lifestyle in people.
Health awareness, health check up camps are regularly conducted in various cities and villages and slum areas.
Awareness sessions regarding the importance of hygiene in daily routine are also conducted.
One of the main focus is to make villages anaemia-free.
Conserve to serve-
The needs of a population of 7 billion are quite a lot- whether in terms of energy, food, clothing or equipment. Naturally, tremendous amount of resources are extracted from the nature in various forms- oil, water, food, trees, etc. Industrialization has increased the load to a great extent by extracting various ores, minerals, stones etc for various activities.
Due to the reckless and irresponsible use of natural resources and energies, their availability is becoming scarce day by day. We started this project with the belief that an aware and responsible mindset would help in tweaking our consumption habits and make the usage of resources more efficient.
We also believe that employing various cost)effective and simple techniques will help in the conservation of resources.
For this purpose, we conduct various campaigns like Save Water, Tree Plantation and Maintenance, visits to Solar Plants, usage of Natural Resources, Solid Waste Management, Water Harvesting Education camps etc.
These days Deepastambha Charitable Trust is focusing on Tree maintenance and its growth,On ARAI Tekdi about 110 plantation happened by Deepastambha volunteers in 2017. Deepastambha Team “Green Army” is working hard since the day to keep them alive and continue this tradition of taking the full responsibility of plantation,their growth and maintenance.
These camps are conducted in public and corporate spaces.
Eco-paavitrya-
Many of our festivals/celebrations happens on a large scale, whether it is Ganeshotsav, Navratri ,Diwali, Christmas or New year celebrations . While there is a beautiful history and symbolic tradition associated with these events, the sheer scale they are celebrated on brings with it a large number of problems. The immersion of Nirmalya(flowers used for worship) in rivers, the burning of statue or the bursting to loud crackers – all these activities cause an immense and irreparable damage to the environment as well as public health.
Through our various campaigns, we educate people about the damage non -eco-friendly ways of celebration inflict on the environment. Most importantly, we provide people eco -friendly alternatives to celebrate with.
We conduct various competitions like essay/slogan writing, drawing, poster-presentation on a massive scale in around 1000 schools to spread awareness. We also perform awareness skits/plays/street performances in public places and parks.
We have also been undertaking the project of making manure out of Nirmalya in association with PMC for the past few consecutive years. This project increases the sanctity and use of Nirmalya exponentially
