It would require 128 years for a single human to do it !!!

441 units of blood was collected in the 2nd Blood Donation Camp. Camp was organized in association with Jehangir Hospital across all Cognizant Pune locations from 14th - 18th Sep 2009.

Doctors advise a minimum duration of 3 months , and one can start donating blood at an age of 18 years.So it would require approx 110 years to donate 441 units. And hence a total time of 128 years (110 + 18) to do it. But we did it together in mere 5 days.

I wish to express humble thank you to all the donors. All of them are real life stars and surely have contributed in saving multiple lives in the process. Thanks a lot .

Also , i wish to congratulate and say thanks to all the technical & non-technical staff and volunteers involved in organizing this camp with great success.

Please find the day wise count for your reference ,

14th Sep 2009 : 88
15th Sep 2009 : 136
16th Sep 2009 : 78
17th Sep 2009 : 58
18th Sep 2009 : 81

With total of approx 8000 associates in Pune all locations , the collection count is 5.5 %. We all feel that there can be some improvement in this percentage. Please share your specific observations and some innovative approaches that can be followed to encourage participation of employees in this noble cause.

It very simple just call him and organize a camp in your organization.

Contact Of Jehangir Hospital Blood Bank :
Santhosh Chacko : Medical Social Worker

Jehangir Hospital , PuneTel : 26122551, 26050550 Ext. 3122 / 3123

santhosh.chacko@jehangirhospital.com

http://www.jehangircares.com/

http://www.akshayapatra.org : The holy inexhaustible vessel

The 'big' small story so far...

One day (about a decade ago) Mr Madhu Pandi Das from ISKON and Mr Mohandas Pai (Infosys-HR Head) visited ISKON temple near Bangalore.And saw the huge automatic kitchen of the temple (like one in Shirdi Sai Baba temple). And they thought of using this innovation to feed poor children in India. A large number of Indian population is not getting sufficient nutritious diet and for children some time this is even as critical as life and death.

While thinking on the solution they also tried to involve one of the other important domain - Education. Finally a solution 'school mid day meal' is devised. They started providing meal to poor kids at schools (mostly government school) so that a dual goal of nutritious food and a quality education both can be achieved.

Keep in mind its a NGO running by the support of multiple individual support , multiple very small donors , ISKON and governmental add. Let the today's data talk about them now.

Covering 7 states in India having huge kitchens at 16 locations only
A mammoth number of 10,74,112 children get full meal every day at their school
With such an optimized approach per meal cost is only approx INR 4.5
Next target is to reach the 50,00,000 mark
Added advantage is more attendance in school , and better study levels

What can i do ?

Feel good and positive about this
Visit http://www.akshayapatra.org/
With only 1200 Ru , single boy and single girl get mid day meal for a whole year
Spread the word across to your friends and encourage them
Talk to your organization HR and find some corporate help
Subscribe to Akshatapatra newsletter and stay connected

Take Care and eat well.

Pictures of Plantation Drive 2009

These are pictures of the Plantation Drive in my organization.
Details are present in my post already.
Date : Week of 5 June 2009
Total Plants : 211
Total Participation : 140 of my company employees.

I guess you have similar Question !!!

My dinner place usually is 5 km from my flat.And a 15-20 min ride of my bicycle is what i enjoy to reach up to that road side shop called 'Steamy Affair'.A place where i get delicious idli sambhar. I eat a couple of plates (4 idlies) and return to my place.Mostly come to Internet cafe directly from there , like i did today.

While i was eating the first plate, a kid of age 8-10 years came to me too , like he was hovering around all those, who were eating there. And i told him, not to touch me. He was standing for 1-2 min alongside me and when he saw there is no response , he moved to next person. I finished the first plate and soon started the next one. Now couple more kids (a 8-10 year old girl carring perhaps 8 month old kid) and started asking for something to people. And this time there was a reaction from the shopkeeper. His business was in threat of these unwanted creatures and from with in his shop he displayed a stick to them and made sure that , that particular 10-15 feet area is evacuated.

Now the kids party grouped around the adjacent shop and there was no one to buy anything from that shop. But a lot of dry eating packs like chips and others were hanging on their sky. A half dozen of flavoured milk bottles were in their eye sight and in reachable distance of their hands but still miles away from their mouth.

Their elder bothers and sisters , fathers and mothers were sitting near by. They were having some balloons with them to sell and i guess a wrong business decision , as very less buyers were there. Argument can be this also that , they do not want to work and their main source of income is these kids who EARN for them.All elders were looking quite healthy and sitting on road calmly.And soon i was giving the finishing touches to my dinner.

I had many many thoughts in those moments. Should i give some money ? Should i give something to eat right now ? Should i finish my food first and then talk to their parents ? Can someone inform the police and tell them not be here ? Why not they work somewhere and their kids go to school ? Should i not react on this ? I kept acting for the whole dinner that nothing happened to me. And i am not affected by this. However i was thinking...

I put down the finished plate of idli-sambhar.Went to the second shop. Brought 5 small packets of the food available there. Each was different flavour. And gave the first packet to the girl , she happily wanted to choose one which she liked. And i let her. She ran those 20 feet from shop to her parents and let others know this. Soon 5 packets were with different kids and now came their elder brother and sister to ask for more. I gave them a couple of hard statements , You are looking healthy , why not you work and eat for yourself. You people should get some slaps instead. The young boy gave a smile in reaction.

With in seconds i was on my bicycles and not looking back to the situation present there. Soon many shops came which sell pyrated book and CD/DVDs on roads. People had a group discussion there , which they want to buy. And so on.I am not an outsider of that group but still had the question.

I know my response is not a solution.
But, I guess you have similar Question !!!

I am so happy...

Here are the details from Blood Donation Camp organized by Anshul. Just look at the stats , amazing. Just a positive mind with very good intention. This camp held in an engineering collage in Indore (MP). Details are :
350+ Students Donated (approx) ( 6 branches , 4 batches)
2 Senior doctors,10 Junior doctors
Duration of 1 day
He ( i am sure few more are there with him now) is having plan to do more...

Anshul , thanks a lot boss for such a great work...

Plan : 2nd Blood Donation Camp

I am writing this post to have reference of planning aspect of the blood donation camp in an organization like mine (An IT Company).

I was in contact with HR person and met him 2-3 times , without any pre-decided meeting plan, and used to tell him that, its more that of 4 months now of the first camp. (It was in Feb 2009). And he was affirmative in that but was busy in some work and used to tell me that in 2-3 days we would plan. And finally he told me, to send the meeting request of the next day and we were ready to plan.I send that request to total 4 (3 of my friends who worked in the first camp and HR). None of my friend could join meeting and it was me and HR in the meeting room.

He was prepared and had date fixed with him. August 2009, 2nd or 3rd week. I said fine. I told him that as of now there are 963 registrations present in the portal. Both of us were not clear that, how many would actually come up in camp as its the second time we are doing this.I gave 2 suggestion for build up activities and he accepted.

1)Name of the Blood Donation Camp Contest : We did it first time on Feb 2009 and are in plan for second already, but there is no formal name for this. So we thought of having a open contest for all employee's to suggest the name of this activity. This would additionally help in spreading of word in company.
2)Design a mailer for Blood Donation Camp Contest : There are many facts that are related to blood donation and general people are not aware of some of them. We would circulate those facts to all, and the name decided from the activity above. The contest would require to design (in word,paint or ppt) mailer with it and send to us. We would receive few good mails that we need while actual activity and more people know about it.

These build up activities would also help in the increasing the count of blood donation registration too. HR also told me that we would do one more build up activity. We would organize a expert lecture for 'ladies' specially on the subject ' How to overcome the problem of less hemoglobin count'. This would help directly to many employees and indirectly would have less rejection count. These three activities are planned from next week one by one in order.

HR person had a prior communication with one of the major hospital already and that work is complete too. May be we would plan few medical lectures on various topics at the time of actual blood donation camp too, HR added.

Plan is drawn. Thank for visiting blog. Would update actual asap they occurs.
Take care.

The 90 min Session

In my office freshers join from generally all the major cities of India. These are 'campus' selected students and its from all major states of India.As the north India is covered by Pune center , here most are from states like MP, UP , CG , Punjab, Delhi , Bihar even WB and Assam.I already went many times to take the training of those batches for my subject (Automation Testing Tools). however this post is for this :

I sent mail to the academy head 3 weeks before and asked him weather its possible that i get (say 2 hours) to present 'social' service related topics , talk to them on their view and encourage them if possible to think more positive on these issues. And yes in 2 hours the answer was affirmative from manager. And in a CMM 5 level one of top 5 Indian IT company i got a licence to talk to freshers (whenever they join) about social issues and some simple solutions that i and company is involved in. And yes this would be a system now , means all those join as fresher here would have this 90 min session (either with me or some one of relevant area)

Last week 3 new batches joined and i was excited to talk to them and share my views.I took 3 sessions of about 90 min each with total of 114 (they are divided in 3 batches) freshers last week.And yes it was very positive.I am giving the main points that i shared and discussed with them.I got few very good mails from them also , i would put them in the comments section soon. It was 100 % kind of participation and many of them were really taking interest.

How i took the session :

1)Talking about their state , collage and other basic points. All start talking as soon as a good polite and smiling (yes i smile a lot in sessions) atmosphere is given to them. I observed that around 90 % of them were in same state of mind means all were smiling together and very serious together too.

2)To give a taste of serious thinking i tell them a story of 5 min.Here we go :
Its a play written by one of big Marathi writer....it goes like this :
A)One man is very tensed and moving here and there and soon one lady open a door and say 'boy' and close the door. Means the hero of play is born now.
B)The boys 5th class result is out and he is standing in front of his teacher. Boy failed and teacher give a powerful slap and say you are nothing. And tell him after that ' go to class 6 , i am promoting you'.
C)His class 12th (or 11th of old style) result is out. Passed in 3rd division. Head master is present there and tell him that he is just a waste of person.He is nothing and say many more of those things. Finally say that i am friend of your father , go to post office and meet some one there , one small job is open there, they will give you work.
D) After some years he got married.
E) The scene A again come for his child now.
F) One day some people talk about him. He was very good person. Never did any interference with any one in life. Just he did his work and was really good person. Oh god , he is passed away. And the scene of his final journey is displayed.End of play.
In the whole story the naayak 'hero' is not speaking/talking even a single word . The name of play is 'Mook-Nayak' (Dumb-Hero).

And friends we all are also similar.You me and all of us in India , we are mook-naayak and we do not react and talk of the things around us.Just no reaction.Why is this ??? What is the reason ?? Why ? Lets try to understand. Now all are frizzed and ultra serious , some felt really bad about themselves and start thinking.And the communication start again. I keep asking why why why....and they respond.

3) in the analysis of 'WHY MOOK NAAYAK'. Many points come out. All points like fear to start some thing , family pressure, professional insecurity , its not my work , why should i do this , its not affecting me and my family , one person can not change this , life is not having time for this , if i help some one else would take its profit , politics is present in all places and many many many reason behind this were discussed. So final conclusion was that :
People are not 'MOOK-NAAYAK', they react inside their mind/heart, but because of the above reason they do not 'REACT'.

4)Then i told OK fine. There are reasons behind why we do not react. Its really correct that reasons are there and the reasons are 'CORRECT' also. But if someone or i give you a solution in which none of the reason above is present then tell me , weather you would feel positive and would involve in that. Just think that there is no reason present of the above , and tell that what is your point of view in that case. What you feel as normal human (simple person) in that case. Just think like normal person.

All most all say YES they can do something at least if there are some 'solutions' present in which no problems are there.I told them about the story behind the blood donation and plantation drive in company(See my initial blog for those details). And told them about many other activities happening in company for this cause. I also told them to share their small experience of social work of their school , collage and others. They shared their experiences. And many had done a lot of good work in their collage and schools. And its was really good to see those good stories with such a good atmosphere.

5) Still we had 15 min with us and even if all most 90% of them talked and shared their view i do not know the any of the name. So we had introduction. Just tell me your name and the song that you like most :)
All were very involved , open and positive and told there names and songs too :) :) :)

Take care dear friends...see you in next fresher batch for those 90 mins again.

Great Work Anshul...

This is what can be called as a power of the 'group'. There was a vacumme in my work for a couple of weeks and then i happened to be online and Anshul told me this.

There was a blood donation camp organized in indore at his collage in which 200 donations were done. Its too good and let me congratulate Anshul once again. Great work Anshul. I dont have other details of this (like planning, preparations and actual activity) once i get them from him i would update here soon.

If we see only engineering collages in Indore there are more that of 20 for sure. And many are in such a close hands of ours. Few old friends, students and student's students are present there. And only need is to 'just do it'.

See you soon with more...
Take care...

Give India : A dream come true

I was reading one of the recent best seller book called 'Stay Hungry Stay foolish' (I already gifted that book to 3 persons). There are 25 stories of IIM - Ahmadabad pass out students who went ahead with their own business ideas and are very successful in their area of work. One story is on Venkat. Before reading that i was having similar solution in my mind and i am glad that Venkat is having it on ground.

Imagine an Internet application that give us ability to donate money to multiple NGO across india (for other countries there are other sites too).

Q : Weather the NGO is true to its work ?
A : Good question , there is a comprehensive procedure after which the NGO is included in the portal.Hence the 'true' NGO is present only here.

Q: Any tracking of the money donated ?
A: Give india not only provide a secure interface to donate money to a NGO , they also give option to choose the work area, state of india, NGO name, actual scheme in which donation is desired and the full report (with pics) of the actual work. In simple words they professionally act as a medium between the Donner and NGO to give clean,accountable and easy donation solution.

Q: Hmm...looking ok. Any thing more ?
A: Yes, they are also having the feature of payroll donation that means, an organization register with them and let their employees do a donation through it. And one can gift a donation too.

Q: Aha...so ...
A: Here is the web site : www.giveindia.org
Experience yourself.
By the way my next major project is this , to implement it in my organization. Even a 100 Ru per month donation of 7500 people is 7,50,000 per month, right. And a big positive feeling in so many...

The Bicycle Project

Note : I got this project information through a chain mail in office and i called the person. He gave me the information and told me that as of now its started in mumbai and soon it would start in pune too. I decided to join this and this is my first project outside my organization. Today (21st June 09) i had a meeting with Mr Kiran (See details below) and planned the work for this. For any direct enquiry you can contact me or Kiran. Here are the details of the project.


In villages located a around big cities, there are several children aged 6-16 years, walking an average of 2-7 kms a day, one way, to get an education. This is the generation that will bring about a change for the better – for their families, their villages, and who knows, maybe even their country and some day, the world!

Going to school is the most important thing for these kids – and they know that.

Which is why no distance is too long – and walking for hours is normal because missing school is not an option. These children’s families can’t even afford to send them by the local bus yet, whether rain or shine, blistering heat or freezing cold, these children do their best to get to school on time, every day.

What is The Bicycle Project?

We’re collecting your old bicycles, which are probably of little use to their owners and lie rusting on a terrace, or in a stairwell or garage. After
giving these bikes a new lease of life, we deliver them to tribal / village kids in and around Mumbai / Pune, in Maharashtra.

For Phase I of this project in Mumbai, we have identified 137 students from Sri Binoi Gharde Vidhalaya in Alone, Vikramgarh Taluka, District Thane, Mumbai. We have already delivered 68 bicycles to the students of this school. Once the target of 137 bicycles is over, we will move to the next village and its school.

For Phase I of this project in Pune, we have identified few schools around Pune District and plan to replicate Phase I in Mumbai.

How can you be a part of this project?

a) Open up a Collection Center – If you have space for storing 10-15 bicycles for a period of 4-6 weeks, you can open up the Collection Center of the bicycles where the donors can drop their bicycles.

You will have to ensure that each donor fills out a form to accompany every bicycle, for our records.

b) Donate Bicycles – You can donate your old bicycles for this cause by dropping them at a conveniently located Collection Centre.

c) Donate Money – You can pay to fix up the old bicycles (1 or more, each costs Rs 500 to fix on an average )

d) Talk about The Bicycle Project – tell everyone you know about this project, put up the posters in your building society, school, office and in your friend’s buildings, talk to society secretaries and get permission to clear their old bikes, ask people if they have space to set up Collection Centres, offer to help us repair the bikes, etc.

Please find attached the poster with our contact details. You can call me (Kiran) on +91 99207 69666 (before 9 am or after 8 pm on weekdays and anytime on Sunday & holidays ). Alternatively you can send me SMS & will revert back to you.
You can also drop me a mail as to how you want to get associated with this project.

Looking forward to your participation.

Kiran S. Deolalkar/Vaibhav Patil
E mail - kiran@thebicycleproject.in or kiran.deolalkar@gmail.com or
Vaibhav.mukund.patil@gmail.com
Blog - www.thebicycleproject.blogspot.com
Website - www.thebicycleproject.in

Plantation Drive

In blood donation drive i became we. And 3 more friends from company joined as serious workers. One of them gave the idea of something on 'Plantation'. We planned the plantation drive on the same lines. This time situation was a bit different.

Our idea was to take contribution (money) from employees and plantation to be done in and around the company. But both points were not as easy, as we had in our mind. Company was not ready to take money from employees for any plantation inside company. And also was not very positive to think that there is enough place inside for plantation.By the way we wanted plantation inside company for better maintainance of plants.

We had some push and pulls and finally plan was finalized. Company decided to pay the money involved and place for plants (including big trees and shrubs) was considered. But all was not going very smooth. We had only 2 days with us for registration process because 5th June (World Environment Day) was coming soon. We did our best in the given situation. Here are the results :

Total Registration : Around 250 +
Total Plants : 211
Total Actual Participation : 140

It was great experience in total. I would soon upload few pics of the event.

Blood Donation

It was a normal day in my office around 1.5 years ago. I and my friend started one post in the office internal portal. This was a list of blood donors having details like blood group and contact numbers. In couple of days more that of 100 entries were there. We felt good and after 45 days the post was deleted because all post have that rule set in the company. We also could not feel more interest in the same.Time passed and around 8 months ago this happened...

I got trigger from some where to do something about it again. My company is having around 60,000 (60K) employees and in pune alone we are 7500 (7.5 K) here. I had following idea.

• A registration application on the same portal. Not a post which is deleted in 45 days.
• A blood donation camp once in 4 month (Doctor allow re-donation in 3 months).
• Donation camp in office campus so that more participation can be ensured.

I sent the mail to my company CEO (yes) directly with these ideas. And second day he replied. Soon there were mails flowing from many levels in organization and reached to senior manager of pune office. And i met him. Human Resource (HR) team was already planning something like that. And soon it happened. The first blood donation drive of this series. Details are here :

Date : Feb 2009
Donations : 569

Now its the time for second drive ,We have around 840 registrations on application as of now, and would share what was the actual donation count.
See you soon.Take care.