Lead The Rest Through Read Fest!

As the doors opened for the Read Fest to be held at School of Inspired Leadership, we could see a plethora of eager volunteers gearing up for the same!
As the flurry picked pace, the excitement grew paramount with participants enquiring for the same, curiosity & inquisitiveness pretty evident from their expressions!

"So.. What's This About? Can You Brief Us?" 

                                                                                      - Anudeep, Student SOIL

The Esha Volunteers left no stone unturned be it through providing information to students or motivating them to record.

Needless to say, the students were very excited & eager to help.
Help implied they had to miss classes & record audio content for Esha..

"We want to help! But we have classes till 6:15! How to go about it?"

                                                                                                - Analytics Student, SOIL

It seemed like an uphill task to convince them to stay back after classes.
The time had come to enlighten the students on how just 10-20 minutes of their time could help a Blind person in understanding & interpreting the world he lives in, in a better way.

The Esha Volunteers did succeed in getting recordings in languages ranging from Tamil to Bengali.
The mission resonated well with the students & they could well understand the impact this was creating on the society they live in..

" Yes, it did take time. Yet, I feel like I've done something of greater value today!" 

                                                                                                   - Marketing Student, SOIL

The Impact could be felt in the conviction & tenacity the Participants showed despite the fact that there were multiple takes at recording owing to technical glitches & noise disturbances.

" We thank you with all our heart & soul. You guys have done a great job!"

                                                                                            - Shivangi Sharma, Volunteer Esha

 

                     In Picture: Two Students supporting Esha in Audio Recordings in Bengali & Oriya at Read Fest

The Experience was enriching & provided lots of learning to both SOIL Students as also Esha Volunteers.

The Impact could be felt, somewhere in between the softened mumbles of students & the sighs of the Volunteers....

Blind Walk At Government Schools

The experience was nothing short of amazing when the sensitization was carried forward through government schools & awareness was spread starting right at the grass-root level!

" Are there schools for the Blind? How do they study? " quipped Neha, a 10 year old as she completed her Trust Walk exercise...

As the curiosity levels soared & youngsters got not only more aware regarding blindness, but also traces of concern & inquisitiveness could well be seen bubbling in the innocent yet curious eyes of the budding change makers..

" I feel amazing after interacting with these young minds.. I've talked to them about blindness before on  multiple counts as my sister is also going through the same " 

-Teacher (Saksham Bal Vikas Sansthan)

It's wondrous how deeply can we impact the lives of these children by making them aware about the blind, sensitizing them so that they develop not only the strength to help & support them but also take inspiration from their tenacity & determination with which they lead their lives..

" So how do they eat? ", asked Arjun, his face gleaming with curiosity 

We sensitized them not only about the Blind & how their strength gets them going but also about Braille & how they study!

" Can I learn Braille too? ", quipped curious Sambhav as he looked intently at his teacher

The positive vibes could very well be felt as the drone of noises that schools are known by could be channelled into positive dialogue with the impact very well received by the students.

Blind Walk At Huda Metro Station

As the crowds amassed creating the usual bedlam at the Huda Metro Station, the Esha Volunteers found a great opportunity amidst the apparent chaos.. 

The Blind Walk at the Huda Metro Station was nothing short of amazing & we were virtually spellbound at the impact we could create in a small span by sensitizing through experience the challenges that the blind come across in their daily lives.

The crowd was divided into pairs of two where one walked with their eyes shut while the other trotted alongside to ensure there are no accidents from the same.

"It was an amazing experience.. 

This is how we understand how it actually feels to not be able to see what lies ahead.. 

Yet, hats off to the courage & determination showed by those who lead their lives very normally despite the same"  

                                         - Aanchal Gupta (Participant)

Not only did it sensitize people about the discomfort faced by the Blind in their daily chores, but also inspired them to undertake their lives with greater rigor & gratitude.

"I'm amazed at how much the blind can inspire us in the infinite power of the human will & ability, & how less do we make out of the same, despite having all that we're blessed with.. " - Aryan Mehta (Participant)

The Esha Volunteers were able to inspire as also get heaps of inspiration from the experience!

"We are geared up & all set for Mission Sensitisation!"

                                                              - Shivangi Sharma (Volunteer, Esha) 

The Esha Volunteers shared their individual experiences after the activity & the enthusiasm seemed to have totally caught a viral trend..

"I feel inspired & it's such an enriching experience" 

                                                               - Himanshi Motiani (Volunteer, Esha)

A lot of people we sensitized were coming from office, after having spent a long tiring day & yet were eager to take up the Blind Walk Experience!

 "I feel that we need to sensitize more people as very less people think along these lines & you people at Esha are indeed doing a great job"  

                                                                              - Samridh Kapoor (Spectator)

The day ended on a positive note with a sense of satisfaction & good vibes ! 

 

 

                                                                                  

Mohammed Vohra - SOIL 2018 Batch - Experience with Esha

"I lack Sight, but not Vision” is driving motivation for us to work for the noble cause.

We, School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) volunteers, got an opportunity to organize Tour De Vision (TDV) 4.0 cycling event in Gurgaon independently. I was fortunate to handle a team of 4 members under the guidance of TDV director, Rajesh Dhuddu, and founder of ESHA, Nidhi Arora. The objective was to sensitize people about the accessibility of public spaces for everyone – including differently abled.

Initially, we finalized date and venue for organizing our event. Prepared Project Charter, and Gantt chart which describes complete details of the event, task, and milestones to be accomplished. A great amount of time was invested in coordinating with our alums in gathering information about participants, corporate sponsors, promotion, snacks arrangement, balanced the budget, submission of all expenses receipts, payment to vendors. Brainstorming session helped us in setting our agenda and tasks to be accomplished on an individual basis.

Networking with the corporates and other organizations facilitated us in raising funds for our event. Multiple cold calls, and email communication helped us in reaching corporate sponsors in large scale. It was followed by scheduling meeting and pitching them to be part of this event. Conducted roadshows, advertising, digital marketing, and promotion in the corporate world for spreading our message among the public. Managing key stakeholders and fulfilling their requests was a challenging task which helped us in gaining client management skills. We ensured that expenses are minimal by identifying multiple vendors and buying products at cheapest prices.

We were fortunate to learn braille machine and printed 150 ‘Thank You!!!’ in braille. It was heart touching to see blind students from Janta Blind School crafting beautiful drawings on the gifts cards, to be given to the participants.

I was fortunate to do flag off for our event. We kept a checklist of all participants before and after the event to ensure that all are present at the venue. Blind walk and NAB (National Association of Blind) performance was followed by cycling event to sensitize how blind people function in the society.

Special thanks to all SOIL Volunteers, who helped us on the day of the event and making it successful. All credit goes to Rajesh Sir and Nidhi Ma’am for giving this wonderful opportunity to work for the social cause.

Rouble Munjal - SOIL - 2018 Batch - Experience of working with Esha

Working with ESHA foundation was one of a type experience. A typical NGO focuses on the
cause and wants other people to synthesise them but ESHA is an organization that is
working for dignity and empowerment of the visually impaired and to bring these
“differentially abled” people to the mainstream by making public space accessible for all.

I come from a mechanical background and I used to design the products that are used
by common people, but we never had the guidelines that we have to consider the
requirements that should suffice the usability of the product by these differentially abled
people.
Our government had already laid down standards for designing of infrastructure, railways,
public areas, offices but are they actually being implemented??
This questions prompted me to join ESHA foundation. When I first visited the Junta Blind
School in Gurgaon, I met the people with better senses then ours, the only difference was
we can see things clearly. Their remembering capacities are way better than ours. Our effort
can lead to one step ahead in making this mission possible.  Over the tenure of 4 months we
were assigned we two projects:
1. Creating Knowledge Resources that are available to the visually challenged at all
times, through the CLABIL (Central Library of Audio Books in Indian Languages)
project
2. Conduct a cycling fundraising event Tour De Vision
Hands-on experience is a better way of getting knowledge than a traditional classroom
programme. I had learned this in early days of my Job. Now when I am pursuing MBA, this
National level cycling event had taught me how I can implement my management skills by
taking care of different stakeholders at the same time. Under the guidance Nidhi Mam and
Rajesh Sir, our team for SOIL were able to make this event successful. I actually want to
thank ESHA foundation to give me this opportunity.

Rouble Munjal
Volunteer ESHA foundation
SOIL 2017-18

Blind walk at Good Earth City Center on 8.03.17

Good Earth City Center is one of the most happening places in Gurgaon, therefore we opt to conduct one of our Blind Walk here. Also, we invited Goibibo employees who work in the close vicinity of the venue. We conducted eight round of blind walk, engaging 51 people. Before we began with our event, we just tried to enquire upon, how good is Good Earth City Center for the people who are visually unabled. Unfortunately, we could not find much infrastructure which could be friendly to these people. With an aim to let people empathize with blindness, we conducted this blind walk.

We were glad that 51 people participated and shared their experience post the event. They also realized how we commoners are ignoring this section of society who are rarely observed in public spaces. Goibibo employees were first time experiencing an event like that, they invited their friends to experience the world without eyes. An event which started with just a blind walk turned out to be a lesson for a lifetime for almost every one of them. We took the recording of the experience of the participants which is available on our Facebook page. We just need a little empathy to make this world beautiful and accessible for everyone, including the visually unable. As a moderator of the Blind Walk, we felt that, everyone who participated have almost forgotten about those who are differently abled, but when they underwent through a similar situation as blindness they are going to remember this for a long time. We thank our NGO ESHA for enabling us to conduct Blind walk at this venue.

Corporate Blind Walk

Today we went to Amtex for conducting blind walk. We met Dankush and HR Neha and they were very supportive. We were introduced to the staff of Amtex . Earlier they all were working but when they were told by Neha about the noble cause for which we were there they all came to support us in this good initiative. We first announced them the reason to conduct the blind walk as it was to sensitize the people towards the difficulty faced by the visually impaired people. We looked for a place where we could do the blind walk.We asked the employees to take initiative and two of those came forward and we instructed them the way to do blind walk and told them the stretch till where those were supposed to do the blind walk. There were a few obstacles in the stretch but everyone used their canes to overcome obstacles and we as Esha team also kept guiding them during the walk. Once the walk was done we asked them about their experiences and they all said it was really tough to walk and they could understand the difficulties the visually impaired people felt. They all thoroughly enjoyed this as well.

After that we recorded the experiences of HR Neha and Dankush as well and they said they were really happy to be part of this activity. They also assured us that their organization would definitely like to be part of the activities conducted by Esha foundation

The SOIL SIP Team is the best SIP Team of 2015-16 batch, and we have an article in The Better India

For some reason, we missed mentioning it here..

The SIP Team of 2015-16 - Saranya, Cauvery, Rethina and Vigneshwar, were adjudged the best outgoing SIP Team of SOIL. This is from out of 18 SIP teams this year.

https://www.facebook.com/atindranath.bhattacharya.3/posts/10209059202022189

And here is a link to the awesome videos that chronicle the journey of this group:
Esha Journey for this batch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaYggRDCD8M

Tour De Vision Promotion Events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp4EKTeA2u4

Tour De Vision 2016 Final Day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92dOptvt6a4

Batch Feedback:

Rethina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrJOc7vp9EM

Vigneshwar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NctvIfGe32s

And the previous year's batch, which truly laid the foundation for this batch's success:

Amit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqKDdyNwW8

Vrishin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SHeVjtOoc

Pooja Singh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDDxyFQoOp8

Karen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBAsZh5QF9o


Part II:
Just yesterday, the Esha blog was featured among the top blogs of India, and today, The Better India carried a story on our CLABIL and CLABIL Outreach Projects.

We are so grateful! Please do spread the word. The idea of CLABIL is not for us to get credit, but for everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone, to get access to this knowledge and literary resource.

http://www.thebetterindia.com/56802/library-for-audio-books-india-clabil/

 

SOIL Read Fest 2015 - 120 files in a day!

Today, the students and faculty and volunteers at SOIL got together to create 120 audio files for the online audio library  - in English, Tamil, and Hindi.

While the volunteers will share their own experience by tomorrow, a quick look at the languages and the top volunteers today! More Power to you folks.

 

Writing about a cute memory..

They were the first batch of SOIL that we worked with. One of the social experiments we tried was 'Value of Books". It was simple. We took a table and put lots of books on it, and small earth piggy bank there. You were free to pick up any book, put the money you think the book deserves. When done, you could also bring the book back. All funds (if any) were to be donated to Esha..

This is what happened when we broke off that piggy bank..

 

Media awareness and public engagement !!!

The students of SOIL- School of Inspired Leadership conducted the third and the last Blind walk event at Leisure valley, sector 29, Gurgaon. This time again apart from 10 SOIL students, public were also made to participate and experience it. This activity not only creates awareness, empathy but also made them sensitize the challenge towards the special skills, needs of the blind and whether public places are inclusive for them. The aim was to make public places accessible to all and to observe people’s reaction to the presence of visually impaired. It was completely different experience for all. The whole activity was covered by media, journalists from Times of India, Hindustan Times, Friday Gurgaon, ETV and 2 other magazines making us reach more people creating wider impact.

Some photos takes during Blind Walk.

Experince shared by some people:

Renuka:

She found it a really different experience altogether.It is tough to live life without vision.

Public participants:

The experiment provided an opportunity to experience what blindness is and how they overcome obstacles at every step. It is really difficult to walk and society should come forward to make public places safe for visually impaired people.

Himanshu Thapliyal:

It is difficult for a visually impaired person to walk in this park as the facilities are not available

.

Vishal Rathi:

A completely new experience for him. He found it very difficult to walk a small stretch. He have never imagined, how life would be without vision and would be so challenging.

Arun Kumar:

This was a great opportunity to understand the challenging things that we don’t realize and sensitize their feelings. He was happy to experience such a unique activity.

Media coverage and participants sharing their experiences.

 The article in Hindustan Times: 

The article in theTimes of India:

Videos of the experience of the SOIL team of 2015 as volunteers of Esha

On the last day of SIP, we requested the team to share their experience of being Esha Volunteers - on camera. Since I wanted it to be real, we gave them about 15 minutes to prepare what they are going to say. No rehearsals, no script - just speak from the heart.

Last night, we uploaded those videos to the Youtube channel of Esha. We encourage you to see these videos to know what it is like to volunteer for Esha.

Vrishin Bhamri: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SHeVjtOoc

Amit Dhalwale : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziqKDdyNwW8

Pooja Singh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFpST1Ee_0U

And the winner of the award for HR Leadership Program, and one of our star volunteers: Karen D Souza:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEdLMUIbbic

Do see all of Esha's videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/eshabraille/videos