My Nonprofit Reviews

I was associated with Make A Difference (MAD), India until last month. Currently I am doing my MBA at Durham University, UK. Apart from my hectic work schedules and travelling I wanted to give back my society a part of my free times. After a lot of research on NGOs in India (and online volunteering programmes) and studying their Organisational goals and achievements, I decided to join MAD (Cochin) as Placement Volunteer. The reasons to join MAD India and not any other well-known; famous NGOs were many. Unlike any other NGO, MAD requires volunteer’s time as the prime input. Hence I was assured to get involved directly with the children and play a vital role in all the activities. MAD consist more of young crowd , aged 18-24, and hence they have a lot of energy to achieve and to work towards a common goal. Over the time-bound study weeks of theirs, I found that the MAD volunteers invested at least 2 hours in a week to teach and interact with children of their assigned centres. As a part of placement team, I was involved in organizing Universities and field-study trips, English language and vocational trainings, and also guest-lectures involving national celebrities and successful entrepreneurs. The last assignments in which I was involved was, taking children to an Engineering college and hotel industry visits and giving them a brief on the job opportunities available in the Engineering and hospitality industry. Few schools were also taken to Navy and Judicial departments of Government of India. The constant feedback I receive from the children after taking them for these trips were that, they didn’t know about such opportunities which they could opt for after their studies. Children find these activities organized by MAD as inspiring and motivating to complete their studies on time with highest scores. I believe those feedbacks were my fuel to invest more of my time on MAD over all the weekends till I was in India. MAD and its volunteers deserve appreciation and motivation for all the efforts that they have taken and still continuing to do. These are young bloods working towards a common goal, and that is to Make A Difference in the lives of children from different social welfare organizations and orphanages. The awards like InDiya I believe will surely act as a ladder and support for MAD to achieve new heights. Cheers!

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