This is the story of how I, a full-time corporate employee, transitioned from weekends filled with Netflix binge-watches to doing something constructive and productive with my time. It was June 2020 and by now work from home was the new normal as Covid19 had sadly enough made its way into every nook and corner of the world. We had zilch social life left and the monotony of routine was finally syncing in. To give you a little background of how I found my way to VAANI, there is something you should know about the firm I work at. We, at Morgan Stanley, celebrate June of every year as the “Giving Back” month where every employee of the firm tries to associate himself or herself with a volunteering activity.
It was while looking up for such activities in the “Giving Back” month when I came across an opportunity at VAANI. They needed volunteers to create learning material for the individualised educational classes that they conduct for the sound impaired kids. I figured this was a great way to spend a part of my weekend and I decided to contribute. This gave me an opportunity to give back to the community in a small way. Post this it occurred to me – we all have certain skills – some of us can draw, while others can write, some are fluent in spoken English while others can strike up a conversation with literally anyone, few of us are superb at technology while others have amazing organisation skills. Don’t we? And yet, we end up just spending our entire weekdays toiling at our workplaces and our entire weekends taking a break from all the toiling. But wouldn’t it just be food for the soul if we could use a very tiny fraction of our time and skills to do some good for the society?
Every child has a right to education and yet a few kids, especially the ones whose needs are a little different from what the society deems normal, seem to miss out on the fulfilment of that basic right. This is where VAANI, a Bengaluru based NGO, steps in. They advocate for the right of every deaf child to live a full and complete life with dignity and respect. Their mission to bring language and communication into the lives of deaf children and their families to enable these children to have meaningful conversations among themselves and with the world around them. This resonated deeply with me and I have decided to contribute my weekends in whichever way I can help VAANI reach a little closer to their goal.
I hope a few of you, if not all, who are reading this find it in you to take some time out of your busy schedule to join hands with this organisation that tries everything in their capacity to make sure every child knows how special he or she is and can grow up to be a light of the world – A light that this world is in dire need of, now, more than ever.
Blog By VAANI Volunteer, Ms.Namrata Singh
