‘’A dreamer is never too small and a dream is never too big’.
There is nothing that cannot be accomplished- there simply isn’t! You just need to make up your mind and go forth with the strongest determination to make it work. And if your motivation is the priceless smiles in the innocent eyes of kids who have been born into financially deprived backgrounds, the payoff can only be valued in intangibles.
The Uncommon Box feels privileged to share the inspiring story of seven students from the Vivekananda Institute of Professional studies, who have come together to make the simple dreams of countless underprivileged children come true. They feature in our Uncommon People section because they may be ordinary people but ones who do extraordinary things.
These 7 youngsters – Adhikaar Batra, Heena Sachdeva, Akshita Jain, Devashish Gaur, Akash Vaid, Apoorva Sharma, and Ankur Mehta help operate ‘Barefoot Dreams’ an initiative for Sarvahitey, an NGO that thrives to be the bridge between the lack of opportunities and their ability to dream by providing a better education to the underprivileged kids.
The initiative aims at gathering support from the society not just in the form of cash or kind, but uplifting the underprivileged student community, morally and emotionally by providing love, time and effort.
How the story of Barefoot Dreams began:
Sarvahitey is an NGO based in Noida, India. It was formed to cater to the underprivileged, their needs, and gradually making them self-sufficient to fulfill their personal, financial and societal obligations. Through the years, Sarvahitey, as an organization, has made ample efforts, and executed numerous projects to enhance the conditions of the underprivileged.
And, in pursuit of the vision, the Members, Volunteers and Affiliates of Sarvahitey have been, are, and will be working ceaselessly. The realization of a sorrow-less and grief-less society will see the culmination of Sarvahitey, i.e. the Good of All.
The word ‘Barefoot’ denotes a situation when you have to walk without anything that keeps your feet from touching the ground. However, for Sarvahitey, it means the feeling of lack of opportunities in the life of underprivileged kids all around the world.
Juxtaposed is the word ‘Dreams’ which, signify their abilityto dream in-spite of all the hardships that come their way.
Hence, the endeavour to encourage these young minds to dream in spite of all odds has been called Barefoot Dreams.
The different events organised in this year’s campaign:
Delhi’s Gole Market’s Jhuggi Camp witnessed a lot of happiness and joyful moments because of the Barefoot Dreams campaign.
For this purpose, a series of fun and interactive events had been organized by the team in the slums in Gole Market for the kids.
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The first event, was a crafts’ workshop and an amusing magic show on 5th March, 2017.
The crafts’ workshop was a beautiful learning experience for the kids. Reminiscing our school days, we planned to conduct a craft workshop for the kids at Gole Market Slums, Delhi. The kids were totally amazed by these square colourful papers and brought all their creative energies together for folding them into flowers, dogs, jokers and even Rangolis. The main aim was to bring out creativity and let the kids feel free to create whatever pleases them.
The magic show was hosted by Poshak Dua who is a magician and an illusionist. He became a favourite of the kids with his very first trick. Poshak, asked some of them to help him with his tricks, and got them so excited that it became a task for the volunteers to discipline the kids. And unlike other magicians, he told them how he did some of his old school tricks.
- March 19th, a Sunday turned out to be a kiddies’ day out! The Indian Railway Museum IS Asia’s largest railway museum to have an exotic collection of over 100 real exhibits of Indian railways with a fun toy train ride as well So, we planned to organize an outing for the kids at Gole Market, to the railway museum. The excursion was thoroughly enjoyed by the kids, from walking through the exhibition, to witnessing life sized engines, to riding the toy train. All their curiosity about the Indian Railways was satisfied and answered. This learning based excursion was successful due to the help of the efforts of people at Sarvahitey, as well as the project team of Barefoot Dreams.
- Another event organised was ‘Happiness Goes Barefoot’, on 1st April 2017. The event was conducted jointly with Talk Happy Therapy who had chalked out a few activities for the kids that would in the hindsight focus on mental health. After the activities, the ever-so-energetic kids treated us to some of their best dance moves and a dance session.
Later on, Chocokart brought in lots of muffins and chocolates for these little ones that were then distributed amongst them. As they say “Happiness is never complete without chocolate”.
- ‘Cite for a cause’ was our final spoken word event under this campaign, on 9th of April at AntiSocial, Hauz Khas, which focused on spreading awareness about the foremost cause – welfare of children. To reach out to the audience, poetry felt like the right mediumof expression. This event was attended by some amazingly talented poets of our time- Vartika Rastogi, Pranjal Asha, Megha Sharma naming a few. They put forth the words to flow around the audience and flag the cause. There were featured performances of Sabika Abbas Naqvi, Paribhasha Yadav, Aastha Singh Raghuvanshi, and Aditya Bhandari.
There’s been a buzz on the Facebook page of Barefoot Dreams with their ‘I Wish’ campaign where they asked these underprivileged kids about their dreams and wishes. And these packets of happiness have big, big dreams. As they say,
‘A dreamer is never too small and a dream is never too big’.
What a heart-warming account this has been of a bunch of committed youngsters dedicating themselves to making the lives of children better and happier in so many ways. It is an uncommon example that all of us need to learn from, follow and support.
You can find more of the experiences of the initiative at the following links:
Organization Profile
Website: http://sarvahitey.org/
Location: Hoshiyarpur, Block F, Sector 51, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201307
Contact Details
In case you have any query regarding the event details, you can either write into them at:
thebarefootdreams@gmail.com
Or
Call them at +91 9999684206.
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Love the thought, A dreamer is never too small and a dream is never too big’