New Life, New Hope
After a bumpy ride to Chandigarh, we settled in to our first week of work which involved two-days of orientation with our partner agency VSO and our clients.
We are working with Don Bosco Navjeevan Society Chandigarh, a local NGO whose mission is to provide for at-risk youth, children and empower women. Navjeevan is a Hindi word that means “New Life, New Hope.” There is no truer description than that for what Don Bosco provides. I feel so very fortunate that we are working with an organization who does so much for the community and advocates for the rights of children. Father Reji and the Don Bosco team are doing amazing work in a challenging environment where funding is limited and the need is so great. Our scope of work will be to help the Don Bosco team increase visibility and sustainability measures to ensure future expansion.
One of the most important parts of any client engagement is understanding the current programs and stakeholders of the organization. We felt it was important to not only speak to the staff and board members in the office, but to visit the schools, nurseries, and slums where Don Bosco operates to truly understand the complexity and challenges first-hand. We visited every single one of Don Bosco’s programs over the course of the first week and a half, speaking with children, teachers, psychology councillors, activities coordinators and parents. On top of the 8 different remedial and Balwadi (nursery) centres in Chandigarh, Don Bosco also runs a family counselling centre, school for children with special needs, vocational training for high-school drop-outs, BA Program for Girls and women empowerment groups. Although emotionally challenging at times, we now have a much better understanding of the difficulties Don Bosco faces and the crucial work they are doing to help children succeed.
Take the children of the Sector 52 colony for example. In Chandigarh and most parts of India, government (publicly-funded) schools end at 3:00pm every day. Parents of these children who are living in colonies or slums are working long-hours to get by, well past 3:00pm, and children are often left unsupervised or in the care of siblings. Many of these children drop-out of school early to help care for their younger siblings and struggle academically. Don Bosco saw the need for these children and opened an after-school remedial program run by qualified teachers. These extra few hours of help have drastically increased the pass rate and the students are now thriving. Of course, there are still challenges, many are absent for family reasons and funding is limited to 30 students, but overall this program has transformed the area.
Now as we approach week 3, we are working hard to deliver upon our scope of work which includes helping Don Bosco with marketing, fundraising and other visibility efforts. Besides a website and social media overhaul, we are working on new fundraising plans and providing key recommendations to ensure the long-term success of the organization.
