From Passion to Purpose: Finding Fulfilment through Volunteering with Pehchaan The Street School

“It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that you cannot sincerely try to help another person without actually helping yourself”. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Volunteering as a form of social work certainly involves the ‘art of giving’. However, one cannot possibly ignore what you can get in return for it. In our highly capitalistic society, where profit maximization is the goal of most organizations, the need of volunteering for social causes without expecting any monetary compensation in return has become crucial for NGO’s or other such institutions. The act of volunteering has many apparent benefits — the greatest of all would be achieving a sense of fulfilment. How can anyone refrain from being happy after seeing the faces of smiling children and helping them grow and develop anyway they can? Human beings are innately social beings, we thrive on social interactions. Thus, volunteering also brings are close to other people who may have a similar mindset with us regarding the growth and development of society. Volunteering itself is usually seen as ‘part-time’ work in which people with a passion to help society may engage in occasionally, it has also become the purpose and driving force of few of their lives.

Pehchaan The Street School, a Delhi based NGO, is one such passion project that slowly, but surely became the purpose of its founder’s life. Founded by Mr. Akash Tandon in 2015 with a group of friends, the organisation is primarily run by volunteers. Every year a large number of volunteers and interns contribute to the cause of providing underprivileged children with free and quality education. The mission of the organisation is to bridge the gap in education faced by thousands of children living in the slums or streets of Delhi. Pehchaan The Street School is a crowdfunded organisation; thus, it has no paid employees as such.

Volunteering offers a unique opportunity for individuals to discover their life’s purpose, discover activities aligned with their values and interests etc. Volunteering allows people to discover new aspects of themselves and their passions. At Pehchaan The Street School, volunteers mostly engage in teaching underprivileged children but the organization’s provides other services too. Skill development workshops, vocational courses, workshops on relevant social issues like mental health and well-being, menstruation etc are also conducted in partnerships with other firms. The organisation also ensures that routine health checkups, legal aid and other necessary resources are made available for their students. Moreover, their mission extends beyond education and goes into the territory of women empowerment wherein they help set up women set up small businesses.

It would be a misconception to think that only the volunteers would be the one teaching and the students would be a passive entity who are going to receive it. Volunteers themselves can hope to learn quite a few things from their students — be it resilience, holding onto hope, courage or optimism. By stepping outside of their own bubble of existence, volunteers can hope to gain insight into the struggles and challenges faced by a large section of our society. No matter what situations they may come from volunteers still get to see immense enthusiasm in their eyes. This enthusiasm is not limited to academics, these children have myriad talents from singing, dancing to drama or sports. These activities are also encouraged as possible vocations. Pehchaan The Street School follows a holistic, impact-based approach in its process of education. The overall physical, social, intellectual and emotional development of these children is given the utmost attention.

The importance of volunteering can be explained in several arguments but perhaps the most important one is the ripple effect it creates for both individuals and society. Receiving proper education early in life drastically reduces the chances of these children of slipping below the poverty line. Underprivileged children are more at risk of falling prey to drug or alcohol abuse, doing unpaid physical labour etc. Education gives them the glimmer of hope for a better life and living situations. It is the duty of the privileged classes to help provide these services for the underprivileged. Educated individuals make up an educated society, which is the ideal world we’re all trying to achieve. The success stories of so many Pehchaan the street school’s children and the testimonials of their volunteers stand as proof to that.

There is an old Jewish saying — “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire”. Volunteering towards just one cause, that of education, can also save the lives of these children from slipping into one of despair and destitution.