Like all events in year 2020, the pandemic forced us to convert our annual event Jeevan Shakti Manch to a virtual one. It happened online on August 2nd, 2020, where we invited our team, some counsellors, a beneficiary and some donors.
In all previous years, this occasion was the confluence of several stakeholders of Mitra Foundation, namely the team of counsellors from Karunashraya, the Beneficiaries, our gracious Donors, and hardworking Volunteers.
The event this year mainly included the Counsellors and Donors. There were around 40 attendees – 7 existing donors, 7 new folks, 5 Karunashraya counsellors, 1 beneficiary and 20 volunteers.
We walk through the objectives of the Jeevan Shakti Fund, which is primarily to support the families of terminally ill cancer patients where the patient is the sole breadwinner. Our respected Trustees, Prem and Nilanjon, took us through the last year’s journey of our activities. The activities mainly comprise support for Education, Basic Sustenance, improving employability, continuous Counselling, and making the beneficiaries self-reliant.
This event is also an occasion for newbie donors to understand the activities of the Mitra Foundation. Hence, we also make it a point to go through the process of evaluation of beneficiaries. The process starts with the identification of new beneficiaries referred by counselors at Karunashraya (or other sources), followed by the support cycle from Mitra Foundation volunteers. The support cycle mainly consists of meeting with the family, understand the background, assess the support avenues , visit the beneficiaries, learn, review, commit, provide support, follow-up, interact, & catalyze. After focusing on the critical areas of activity, we go through some of the beneficiary case studies with Donors and Counselors to get their feedback as well as identify how we can serve them better.
During the presentation, Some of our volunteers narrated the progress with a few beneficiary families and how they are supported so that they become self-sufficient. The Roadmap and the growth of the organization in terms of families helped and funds deployed were discussed in the following session to motivate potential donors.
We also touched upon the second initiative of the Mitra Foundation, which is the Jana Sahyog initiative. The key areas where Jana-Sahyog has made progress is to organize programs for uplifting the nearby communities at LBS in the domain of education, health, youth empowerment, and COVID relief. This year about four weeks of support work to provide meals and food kits to the needy was organized.
The meeting concludes with an appeal for contribution to the Donors and Volunteer to take on the new activities which Mitra Foundation has tasked itself to take on in the coming year. Also Karunashraya counsellors shared their views and thanked for the work, Mitra foundation is doing.