Meeting at Ivolunteer office (May 19, 2007 -- 2:30 PM to 4:15 PM)

My friend and I were playing scrabble; Suddenly I looked at my watch and almost shouted "OMG!, it is 2:00 PM". "So, what happened?", She asked me. "I have a meeting in Koramangala at 2:30 PM and we haven't done our lunch; Let's make it fast" I started wrapping up the board and letters while she went to kitchen to get the food. We finished the lunch by 2:15 PM and then I started by formula 1 race from Jayanagar to Koramangala.

Exactly at 2:30 PM, I was in Ivolunteer office in Koramangala where I met Vijai who just joined Ivolunteer. He is interested in spending time with HIV/AIDS infected people. I said, "Wow, that's an excellent Idea". We don't have this color in our group at present and I am sure Vijai will have great time here and he will share some of his experiences through this forum. Welcome Abroad!

Anshu, Asif and Harsh joined me soon and we decided to wait for others. In the mean time I contacted Sayeesh, Neetu, Moin, Parul on their mobiles. Neetu had some emergency, Moin and Sayeesh were not joining us because of some personal work and Parul's phone was not reachable. As Claire, Sunitha and Vijay already informed so we started the meeting.

PPT review: The main agenda of the meeting was to discuss the PPT but as we didn't have Moin and Parul (who were supposed to come up with Ideas) so we skipped this step for the time being.

WHO PDF review: Harsh circulated one pdf by WHO last week and he brought couple of copies of print out. We had a look at different slides and found that it is covering all the possible points in a nice and coherent manner. Harsh proposed an Idea of embedding the voices of characters in the presentation to make it more interactive and attractive. We started counting minimum number of characters required and the count was four which included two boys and two girls. Again we stuck up as there was no girl in the meeting so we moved this item as well to next meeting. We started discussing the technical details of the presentation. As it was WHO presentation so we need to get an official approval for the same. Also we needed a voice recorder and notebook to merge voices and presentation slides. Hence, we finished our meeting with some ARs.

AR: Amit: To get the WHO approval for using the presentation material
Harsh: To get the voice recorder to record the voices
Asif: To bring his notebook to merge the voice with slides


Attendees (In order of appearance): Amit, Anshu, Asif and Harsh

Meeting at Ivolunteer office (May 12, 2007 -- 3:30 PM to 6:15 PM)

3:30 PM -

I reached the iVolunteer office in Kormanagala and found Sunitha, Moin and Mukul waiting for others. Soon Vijay joined us in the office followed by Parul, Sayeesh and one new volunteer Neetu (Welcome to the group Neetu and I am sure you will have fun here). As we settled down and were enjoying the snacks sponsored by Sunitha, Harsh also joined us. Soon we finalized the following Agenda for the meeting:

1. An introduction about ASHA Foundation and team members for new member Neetu.
2. Watch video clips brought by Amit and discuss their usage with different target audience
3. Improvements in the skit
4. Event planning for employees of 'The Park Hotel".

Introduction - Sunitha told us the detailed history of ASHA Foundation and its progress till date, then all the volunteers shared their stories about joining Ivolunteer and ASHA Foundation, their motivations and experiences. In the end the new volunteer (Neetu) narrated how did she come to know about the 2 organizations.

Video clips - Then all of us started reviewing the video clips downloaded from youtube.

Couple of them were covering the basics of the HIV/AIDS and few others were interviews of HIV/AIDS patients. In the interview videos, all of patients highlighted about the discrimination and humiliation experienced by then from the society. In couple of videos we found quite good information to put in the start of our presentations. After looking at all the clips we found that most of the videos are targeted either for one particular way of transmission or for one particular section of the society. So we finalized that we can use some of the video clippings (not the entire video) in our presentations at different places to make it more interactive.

Also we all felt that we need to shoot some videos on our own keeping our requirements in mind.

Skit improvements - We had couple of successful skit sessions at Juvenile home and SOS village and it is time that we need to look at the next level which is improvements in current script. Apart from the ideas which we discussed in the mails, we found couple of more improvements in the skit like avoiding the visit of Badri to brothel and the scene of taking drugs.

Planning of the "The Park" event - We couldn't discuss much about it as we were short of time and the event date was not yet finalised.

Attendees (In Order of appearance) - Sunitha, Moin, Mukul, Amit, Vijay, Parul, Sayeesh, Neetu, Harsh

Journey So Far...

It was a routine Friday evening; I had finished all my work in advance so that I can sprint back home to enjoy the weekend. However that day, 16th December 2005, I had to go elsewhere – No. 99, Cox Town, Bangalore (the old address of iVolunteer, Bangalore office) to meet Ms. Antonette Lopez (earlier Center Manager).
I reached the iVolunteer office with lots of desire to change the world but to my surprise I saw a message, which said, “Stop thinking about making this world a better place, because intensions don’t make difference, Volunteers Do”.

Even Anna conveyed the same message during our brief talk on volunteering, different kinds of social issues and the various NGO involved. She explained certain basic etiquettes of being a volunteer (Do’s and Don’t) and she also made me realize that I need to start small but think big; Subsequent to my chat with Anna I decided to start with “environmental issues”. I felt happy about taking the right strides in fulfilling my societal goals. But even after 2 months no work or volunteering opportunities came my way, which was annoying me.

Then one fine day I received the iVolunteer-Monthly Newsletter of January 2006 where I read about volunteering opportunity in ASHA Foundation regarding AIDS Awareness. Though this wasn’t my initial choice of issue, which I wanted to work for, the impatience and also keenness to do something made me contact Anna, got the necessary details and reached ASHA Foundation.
Spoke comprehensively with Sunita (Counselor) and Dr. Glory Alexander (Director of ASHA Foundation) about the support which I can provide and also understood their requirements. Dr. Glory fixed Sunita as the Project Coordinator for all the volunteering activities on behalf of ASHA Foundation.

But managing volunteers or delegating volunteering activities was completely new for Sunita and volunteering was new to me. In essence we both didn’t know where to start or what to start or how to start?

But we didn’t have to worry since we had the able guidance of iVolunteer, which helped us form a small group of volunteers including me, Gaurav, Claire, Shilpa, Sayan, Vinod and Arun. We called ourselves iVolunteer-ASHA Group.

Sunita gave us exhaustive knowledge on HIV/AIDS and knowing the harmful effects of this virus further strengthened our desire to volunteer for this cause. All of us brainstormed a lot for over a month and decided upon our strategy of spreading AIDS Awareness.

The first event was publicizing the AIDS Helpline numbers through SMS to all our friends…a simple beginning but surprisingly it was a huge success. Counseling calls started pouring in on ASHA’s AIDS helpline. Thus the message was very clear “Many people require knowledge or awareness about AIDS and we as volunteers need to do provide it”.

And as in all stories after a good beginning the author says, “The rest is History….”. It is the scenario with our group as well;

However over the past few months the volunteers have changed but the initial desire, enthusiasm and zeal has remained the same and we have continued to spread awareness about HIV/AIDS to various section of the society in different forums through different means – SMS, EMAIL, Internet Communities, groups and blogs, Street Play, Presentations, Talk, Workshops, Display of Posters and games.

CLick Here ----> The event so far....

Feedback: SOS village - Bangalore (May 06, 2007)

The event on Sunday was one of the best execution till date we had and I like to appreciate the efforts put by Claire and Prarthana for their

prompt performances in the play. Three cheers for your guys!!! About the improvements, these will keep going and we will never be perfect

so don't be disappointed by that and let's move forward with positive attitude. --- Amit Mittal

Congrats to everyone for making the show a hit. --- Claire Philip

Kudos to iVolunteer-ASHA group for continuing its excellent work on spreading HIV/AIDS Awareness.

Yesterday's AIDS Awareness event at SOS Village for rural women (as part of their Family Welfare Program) was a big success, thanks to the best efforts put in by all the volunteers - Asif, Amit, Vijayanand, Claire, Sayeesh, Asha, Shilpa, Mukul and Prarthana. I could make out that the women were really very happy for gaining the knowledge on HIV/AIDS....since many of them personally came and thanked Asif, Me, Sayeesh and other for imparting the knowledge. I guess we incorporated most of the areas of improvement which we had identified after the last session. Also, we did really well in making it more women related talk than men related session (by displaying placards and stressing on prevention of Mother to child transmission) --- Vijayanand Nagaraj

This time we were did do the whole show great except for a few hiccups here are there. Plaques really helped get the attention. --- Asif

Girls Juveinile Home (May 01, 2007)

“Yes, The play was superb.. So was the acting of all concerned.” - Moin

“Hi Folks,

Yesterday's program at the Girls Juveinile Home was really good. Everything went on as per plan.

Starting with the gaming expert - Prarthana's "Idli-Vada-Dosa" game, then the enthusiasm shown by the girls by displaying their talents in Singing, Joking and also excellent bharatnatyam dance and finally the very well performed skit which conveyed almost all aspects of HIV/AIDS.

I guess the girls were really impressed with the acting of Sayeesh (Badri - The Bad Guy) :-), because after the skit when Asif asked all of them "How did the child get infected with HIV?" ...everybody unanimously said "Because of Badri" :-)

Also Kudos to Asif - The Narrator for managing the Kannada dialogues really well...and conveying the Message of the Skit in an articulate way.

Thanks to Sunita for summarizing all the points...stressing on need for prevention especially for girls.

Thanks to Srikanth for providing beautiful and meaningful information about Rangoli....and the girls really loved and enjoyed the rangoli competitions. It was a great end to a wonderful beginning.

The event is over but I am still wondering... "Those girls were feeling so shy or scared to even speak or participate, then how or what made them commit those crimes for which they were put in the observation home?".

I am happy and feel satisfied to have contributed atleast 3 hours (3PM - 6PM) of happiness, knowledge and joy in their dark life. May God bless them with good future ahead” - Vijayanand

SOS Village - Bangalore

Sunday 10:15 A.M., I reached Shoppers' stop after having light breakfast at home. It took me hardly 30 minutes as there was no traffic on the way. As was expected, I was the first person to reach there. Before Mukul would have join me, I enjoyed cool breeze in front of the Mall. Later on, Asif accompanied us followed by Vijay and then Prarthana, Asha and Claire. We dumped all our stuff needed for the event in Claire's car and started for our destination "SOS village".

After riding for around 6-7 Km, Asif, Mukul, Vijay and I reached the village. Vijay met the person in the office who introduces us to Bindiya. Soon Sayeesh joined with one of his friend Shilpa. We were still waiting for the ladies to join us but there was no sign of their presence. Vijay called Prarthana to find out their whereabouts but they themselves didn't have much clue. While Vijay was talking to Prarthana, I left for the Bannerghatta Road to see if they are somewhere near the junction. After waiting for 5 minutes, ladies joined me at the junction and we entered in the village after having an introductory talk with Bindiya.

We entered in the village and we found our self in a beautifully maintained children home which was nowhere less than any decent resort. The concept of SOS village is a small village kind of place where we have many 3 rooms cottages with all basic amenities. In every single cottage, twelve children will be staying like a family and will be taken care by a woman who will be mother for these kids for rest of their lives. After the schooling till metric, these kids will go to college to get higher studies. At this time, the children will be staying in a hostel or PG and will be taken care by a single woman (similar to the kids in the village). Today these women were coming to the village to collect their paychecks for their families running costs. I was really happy to see a girl who has completed her studies and now working. This fact touched my core and boosted my morale and confidence saying that "Nothing is impossible if you have determination and commitment". After having a cup of tea in the village, we went back to the common room where we need to start the event.


As soon as we entered in the room, we found our self standing in front of 40-50 mothers who were waiting for us. Vijay introduces all of us to the group there and told about agenda for the event, Ivolunteer and ASHA foundation.

We moved to agenda decided on Saturday and as usual Ice breaker was "Idli, vada, dosa...". Initially we thought that it won't work here as the target audience's age is around 30+ on average but it worked. It means that this will work everywhere and it is going to be the usual Ice breaker for rest of the events (hope so). Prarthana is very experienced in it and she did well again.


Then Vijay took the charge and called one of the mother in the group for a free talk. Soon all of them were quite open with the group and talking freely. Then a person sand a song there and the voice was amazing. In the end of the song, we came to know that the person can't see but his other senses were so strong that unknown person will be amazed by it and we realized it by the end of our event. After the free talk, Vijay asked one of the mother to talk about the sex but again as expected, there was no response.

We moved to our next item which was the play for HIV/AIDS awarenss. We were missing our two actors Parul (wife) and Sunitha(doctor) but these were replaced by Prarthana and Claire respectively and both of them picked very well. Keeping in mind that there was no practice session, I would say that both of them were awesome. The play went well with some minor hick ups which we need to improve with time and practice. The hoardings brought by Vijay were quite useful for audience to understand the skit. Following are the ways of HIV transmission which we covered through the play:

1. HIV transmission during intercourse which can be avoided by:
1. not having multiple partners and be faithful to the spouse.
   
2. Using condoms correctly and consistently during the intercourse.
   
2. HIV transmission through the usage of used syringe which can be avoided by:
1. saying no to use a used syringe.
2. sterilize the used syringe before using if we don't have any other option.
3. HIV transmission through blood transfer which can be avoided by checking the blood of the person, who is donating, for HIV/AIDS infection before transmitting.
4. HIV transmission through mother to child during pregnancy or through breast feeding which can be avoided:
   
1. taking precautions and proper checkup in the pregnancy period.
2. avoid breast feeding by HIV infected mother.

Play got finished and then we used the hoardings, which we brought specially to educate women, to explain the causes and their consequences to the mothers. The session went in quite detailed and Vijay answered all the queries raised by mothers. We were quite happy to see the invlvement of mothers in the group.

As we finished the agenda, every single mother wished all the group members and we departed from there with some new knowledge, concept and awareness.