In my teenage I never had this mindset of serving the society or helping anyone. I was someone who was more engrossed in my own life and focused on always having a fun time with my friends and that was it, nothing beyond that. In fact, I remember once a friend of mine had asked me to tag along with him for a blood donation camp where both of us were supposed to go and donate and I remember refusing him because my mindset was self-centred, and I told him it is my blood why should I give it to anybody else.
I was 19 when in 2013 I was fortunate enough to meet Maitreya Dadashreeji who inspired me to serve everyone around us in whichever way it was possible and that it was our responsibility to give back to the society. The first thing that came to my mind was blood donation and that time and immediately after that an incident had occurred where someone had called me for a rare blood group, and I remember a particular person dying because that blood group could not be arranged in time.
From then on, I along with my fellow volunteers from Y.G.P.T (Youth for Global Peace and Transformation) decided to organise a blood donation camp within the city and appeal to the local youth to come forward for this noble cause. From thereon started our journey of social activities and taking up initiatives for the society from then till now we have organised more than 25 blood donation camps and have collected about 4000 units of blood.
I am glad to share with you that last year in Covid pandemic lock down alone we managed to collect more than 900 units of blood within a span of four months or less and had received letters of appreciation from Rajya Sabha MP, Lok Sabha MP, the mayor of the city, the police commissioner of the city, BSDM of the city and so on.
We were also awarded appreciation certificate by government of Punjab Department of health and family welfare for our commendable contribution towards the cause of voluntary blood donation during COVID-19 pandemic.
All I want to share with you and is that it starts with action. So many times, we just keep on thinking about doing something but never end up starting it. I know of so many people who want to do good for the society and have brilliant ideas but have just never been able to start or bring them down into action. We fail to realise no matter what ever idea we have unless, we give it shape and bring it into action nothing is done, no one has benefited, and nothing has changed.
I would also like to mention here that we were also awarded by Economic Times now which is a channel in the Times network group for preserving on the path to progress in being India’s crusader of revival.
It started with action. When lockdown had started, we did not exactly know what to do and all we could think of was providing ration to the needy. We began with that and continued distributing ration and reaching out to the corners of the city where there was shortage of food up to 20 days or so. We were conducting the food distribution drives in such a manner that the local corporation was impressed by your work and the mayor of the city asked us to collaborate with him for distribution of dry ration in certain areas of the city.
Soon we were approached by the local administration and the local government Blood Bank to organise a blood donation camp as there was acute shortage of blood at that time. We did not know much but we acted and as we kept on acting things started to open. We had only thought of organising one camp and see how it goes but looking at the response we immediately organised another and another and another and it kept on going until we crossed 900 mark and the lockdown situation had somewhat eased out for other local social organisations to pigeon.
It is like walking in a foggy day. Our visibility is restricted up to a certain limit and beyond that it is only fog. Similarly, as we keep on acting and keep on progressing the path appears to only that much area in which we can step forward and as we keep on taking our steps the path also keeps on showing itself. It is telling us to act now, we cannot really plan much ahead but we can persistently move forward. Hey, the speed does not matter, forward is forward.
My request to all of you is to start acting because whatever we plan there is no guarantee that it will work out as it was planned. We will have to adjust to a lot of unforeseen situations and the one who is flexible will sail through smoothly, but a start is a must.
I personally believe when the intent is correct even the Divine comes down to help you and with Him by your side nothing is impossible. So, start taking actions for the right cause and the way will begin to appear itself.
Comments