The more the merrier...

After I wrote the last post, I got in touch with two interesting people, one of them an old friend and the other a new friend.  Both are doing interesting things in their own ways. Odette Katrak is now in Gurgaon, an HR pro and a Soft Skill trainer and now an activist of an original kind.  She is interested in Social Change and gets involved in instilling traffic sense, civic sense and good citizenship behaviour.  As part of this she is working with Gurgaon traffic Police to instil a sense of discipline in the hapless and clueless janata of this Millennium city.  I requested her to write about how she has managed to convey the ideas of traffic rules, norms and discipline to her two young daughters.  She writes very well of her experiences.  She has promised me that she will write not one but three pieces in the same vein.  So let us hope in these columns you will get to see her writing shortly.

The new friend I made recently is Mujeeb Khan, a tall, dark and handsome young man from Hyderabad.  He too is a father of two children and runs an organization called Bhumi in Hyderabad.  Mujeeb did his master's in Communication from Mudra, then worked in advertising and film direction.  But he wasn't satisfied with the limited and transitory impact of these media.  He was fired with the ideal of bringing about change and transformation.  So he moved out of Mumbai and into dairy farming in rural Andhra.  He met a number of people associated with the social/developmental sector.  Some advised him against the current run of developmental work and asked him to test himself for endurance.  Mujeeb and a few of his friends started Bhumi.www.bhumi.in  Mujeeb invested his own funds and started work in a slum area near Begumpet airport.  Rasoolpura has become his karmabhoomi.  Mujeeb wants to develop transformational leaders through Bhumi.  His idea is that we need these kind of leaders at all levels who will work with systems of governance to deliver the basic ingredients of well-being to the people.

I was impressed with his clear thinking and vision.  He said that our education had nothing to do with the problems which the country faced.  That is when I shared with him the idea of Janasamwaad.  If education has to address the problems that we face as a country, instilling the philosophy, the principles and the processes enshrined in our constitution must take the centre stage of such education.  Look at what Mujeeb and his band of workers have done in Rasoolpura.
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"Freedom under Construction was born in 2006' as a small flame that was ignited at the stroke of the midnight hour on 14th August. Volunteers from all walks of life gathered at an un-likely place, Rasoolpura- one the biggest slums in Hyderabad. The mission was to re-construct a school building which had students studying in debris and filth for years together. After the area around the school was cleared of filth, the rubble from the part of the building that was brought down was used to level the ground. Meanwhile, volunteers painted the school and by the time the sun smiled on them, they had laid foundations and built walls for three new classrooms for that school. The community that we are working with woke up to a pleasant surprise, the garbage dump, the filth and stench was not there anymore, in that place of a dumping yard and half torn falling structure stood half walls of 3 new class rooms to be.

The largely indifferent, cynical and suspicious community now stands behind us in all our transformation initiatives. The flag hoisting in the school grounds by a famous freedom fighter, Keshav Rao Jadav, after having participated in nation building in a small but significant way remains etched in the memories of each individual who worked that night. In many ways we earned our right to salute our flag and no one can ever rob us of the pride we felt in ourselves and in our nation."

I am sure you will join me in wishing every success to Mujeeb and his team.  Do visit the Bhumi website and see what best you can contribute.