Anantprayas, my first heart to heart talk with an NGO owner!

The first member in the team that was formed in my company, my very close team mate, my friend, a person with whom I argued good and bad very often….. Aaloka. We are colleagues and worked closely for a long time. He then moved jobs and then is now in Ireland. He pings me occasionally and we say hi and hello to each other.

In my quest to look for goodness in this world, I happened to talk to one of my old time mentor/coach/guide whatever one may call, Mahesh, …more of a friend and well-wisher(a great human being) and he mentioned “oh…if social organization is what you are looking to start or be part of, you should talk to Aaloka as he has one registered”. This was totally out of the blue….I was thrilled and excited. I came back and blocked some time with my old-time pal to talk about the greater goodness in life….and as usual…. he came forward more than willing to tell me all about it…

Today we finally talked for almost one hour over a call and here go some highlights….

Aaloka has come from a middle-income family background and has struggled in some ways during his study period. He comes from a small city Muzaffarpur and completed his engineering studies from the top Govt Engineering college located in Sindri, suburb in Jharkhand state. He now works in a company with a big brand name and has a nice family. He thought it was time to solve the problems that he faced, for other students. He wanted to financially aid students and so he researched about the topic. He was lucky to find like minded and active people who joined hands with him and today they have a registered non-profit organization www.anantprayas.org

Many people (maybe even me) talk about greater good, but very few can get their hands dirty and hit the ground to actually do something. These people really inspire me because they are doing something that I have not been able to do.

Aaloka and his organization currently help financially disadvantaged students in the Engineering college to get laptops. They screen the students and procure laptops for the well-deserved ones. The process is long and hard. The funds need to come, the right people need to be chosen, the organization and certifications need to be in place, fraud needs to be avoided, balance sheets need to be maintained….and it goes on and on and on.

The organization has now donated 21 laptops to deserving students. They want to expand their work pan India and do more in the education sector. This is really a very very brief summary as it is hard to explain his passion in words!

I promised Aaloka that I will come back to him to see if there is anything, I could do for him. Again, my self set priorities and boundaries make me nervous to cross the line and say I will do it. But when someone like Aaloka says “if people like you who I know can really do something come forward, then I will be very happy”, this really makes me feel elated to know that at least I have some reputation and at the same time I feel very small not using my skills to do more.

Just talking to such people and re-visiting our discussion by writing it is making me more and more inspired to do something more…

If anyone wants to contribute in India to the education sector, you should talk to Aaloka. He has lots of things in his org, he has ideas on what you could do, he has the experience to tell you what might and might not work and he is just a nice guy to talk to 😊. Now that you have read this… you should go through www.anantprayas.org !!