On July 28th We had our 6th Jeevan Shakti Manch, which we started in 2014. The Jeevan Shakti Manch is a forum for all of the stakeholders in Jeevan Shakti Initiative including the beneficiaries, donors, volunteers and other well wishers, to meet each other, interact, and share. The objective is to continuously enhance the impact of this initiative.

As always the manch has been a day of hectic activity, with lot of preparations before and follow-ups later. We had participation in this years manch from nearly 20 donors and well wishers, 18 of the volunteers, and 34 of the 40 beneficiaries we are actively supporting.

The Jeevan Shakti family over the years has grown so big, that we had to plan this years event different. We knew we wouldn’t be able to fit all of the beneficiary families into our usual auditorium at Karunashraya. So we had used the auditorium for the initial donors and volunteers meet (~50 people) and had to setup an external seating and cover for the ~100 beneficiaries and guests.

The morning session for the donors and invitees included an update on the past years activities by Trustee, Nilanjon Gupta, which included stories from few of our beneficiaries to highlighting various challenges faced by them and how we look to support/empower them. We also had few of our new volunteers share their experience while working with these families.

The later session was for the beneficiaries, which included sessions by few of our invited speakers: Nithiyanandan Ji, from Smile Welfare Society talked about opportunities and career planning for children in 10 to 10+2 classes, Mrs. Meenakshi from APSA , who talked about vocational training options and Mrs. Shobha from We Visionary Association, sharing about opportunities and support for women entrepreneurs. This was followed by some of the beneficiaries sharing their stories and experiences so that they can learn and take strength from each other. Lastly we had the much awaited talent presentation and entertainment by the beneficiary children. This was followed group pictures and lunch. The day was wrapped up at 2:30pm and we all headed home re-energized and ready to make Jeevan Shakti Initiative stronger and look for ways to connect up and support more beneficiaries in the upcoming year.