Being a Corporate person for the last 16 years, my focus area has always been to improve Key Performance Indicators and create productivity benefits along with added value. From time to time, I would take on additional responsibilities, create visibility across cross-functional projects, and work to optimize resource utilization. Clearly, the goal was to drive performance, become extremely results-oriented, and thus increase efficiency.
Professionally I have started from scratch and I have reached a certain level that I can be happy with. I value achieving some important milestones in my career effectively. Although I had my share of stress, struggle, roller coaster rides along with constant ups and downs in my corporate journey. With some of my accolades, I’ve been on cloud nine and literally enjoying the pinnacle of success.
In addition, I have also committed to exploring certain areas of work and participating in challenging roles as a coach, trainer, motivator and teacher, thus capitalizing on my strengths all these years. These complementary roles have definitely given me a high and a feeling that I am in seventh heaven. In fact, I didn’t know until then that I was a multifaceted person until I chose those areas and confidently acquired those accomplishments. The idea here is not self-praise, but to set a context for something closer to my heart and more intriguing.
As I embarked on my corporate journey, I kept asking myself all these years. What have I done as a responsible citizen for this nation and its people? India remains a developing country with multiple problems related to economy: poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, disease, pollution to name a few.
Believe it or not, with the existing ecosystem that surrounds us, it is very easy to blame and criticize the government, the ministers, the politicians, the bureaucrats for their malfunction, lack of transparency and responsibility for the different problems that prevail and They corrupt our society.
So my question is so that everything is fine for the people. Have we really volunteered to contribute in one way or another to any of these social causes or economic issues?
When we interact with different people on this topic they have numerous arguments that resist social work and some of the common ones are listed here:
1) I donate money quite often, so why do you expect me to work on these issues separately?
2) I pay my taxes regularly to the government on my earnings on each product or service I buy. Rather it should be the government’s responsibility to address these problems.
3) I’m too young to get into all this nonsense in this dating age and enjoy life.
4) I can barely afford my monthly income, so how do you expect me to contribute my earnings to these causes?
5) I am already quite busy in my personal and professional matters, what help can I give to solve these matters.
6) Most NGOs are usually corrupt as shown in the media and my contributions will never reach them as seen in the past.
Before I volunteered and ventured into social work, even I had those thoughts in my mind.
However, all of these misconceptions were addressed. Thanks to some of my direct reports who were actively involved with some NGOs and convinced me to take the plunge. So I decided to take a step forward.
After a detailed discussion with my colleagues about how to do my part, my perspective towards these organizations and the people associated with them changed completely. I discovered a new challenge, a new thought process. It transformed my idea of wasting my time doing charity to using my time constructively to help our society and people prosper.
I began to think about how I could partner with these organizations. I have come to the conclusion that there are only 3 golden rules that one should follow before venturing into any of these causes:
1. I must clearly understand that my role is that of a volunteer or a participant and will be shaped or grown only according to my discretion, experience, will and intention.
2. My contribution is to commit my time (even if it means investing only one hour a week and even if I don’t want to contribute financially to them).
3. I choose to volunteer my time only to causes close to my heart, causes I really care about, causes I might have knowledge/experience with. In short, I look at the scope of my work, my time and my goals.
Finally, I made the decision to work with two Non-Governmental Organizations that
provided training and skills development to the underprivileged children of our society.
With an organization, I volunteered to teach English once a week for one hour to children under the age of 14. And with the other, I decided to start a job related to improving soft skills and customer interaction skills for teenagers with weak economic backgrounds once a month for 4 hours. After their training, they are expected to start earning money for a living.
This type of work really gives me a lot of internal satisfaction and makes me feel good while contributing in my own way to the society, the nation, the people, especially the children. And I love doing it because I feel connected to children and to the field of Education.
This job has broadened my horizons, enriched my experiences, given me a new lease of energy, and transformed my perspective on different things, adding new meaning to life. Also universally and scientifically, it is a known fact that positive work and energy attract positivity on this planet.
While other colleagues of mine are concerned with issues like pollution control, agriculture, women’s welfare, health care, security, etc., they work in those areas.
So what are we all waiting for? Let’s start volunteering with just 1 hour a week to make this country and the planet a beautiful place to be with minimal problems and wonderful people in every corner of this world.