“How many times can a man turn his head,
And pretend that he just doesn't see?”
 - Bob Dylan: Blowing in the wind

In my case, it must have been several hundred times. I lost the count of the occasions when I saw destitute kids on railway platforms, traffic signals or in the train and felt sorry for them, worried about their lives, their futures, felt the urge for doing something…..and then….moved on, suggesting myself that I am not empowered enough, I am too insignificant to bring about any change in anyone’s life, I moved on with my own life, in my own world where I kept my eyeballs fixed enough so that they don’t peep into the world where these children inhabit, whom I was too insignificant to help!

And how mistaken I was! Had it not been my stint for the “iVolunteer Summer Fun Project” with Bandra East Community Centre, I would still have lived inside the very boundaries I had drawn around myself with nothing but excuses. Excuses for not doing what needs to be done, excuses for not seeing what needs to be seen. But, coordinating an exciting group of volunteers in the home for abandoned children at BECC went on to become an experience from which I will never cease to learn, the effect of which I do not think will ever leave me.

When Misha (from iVolunteer Mumbai) asked me to coordinate the summer fun activities for the kids at BECC, I took it up with apparent confidence, but with enough apprehensions in my mind. How will the kids will, will they like us, will it turn out to be a successful one, that is, will it be able to add value to the lives of the children and most important of them all, will we be able to connect? An enthusiastic bunch of volunteers allayed my apprehensions to a great extent, but after the first two weeks of activities, I could conclude that we and the kids could connect to each other. The intelligence of the children came across as a pleasant surprise, but what awed me was their awareness, up to date knowledge about the happenings around the world and the conscience which sadly is found not even in many educated persons. They knew about the earthquake in South East Asia, they knew about the Jessica Lal murder case, some of them could even point out West Indies islands in an Atlas and when asked to pick the pictures with which they can identify their vision of future, nobody of them picked photographs of big houses, fast cars or immaculate clothing but they picked up pictures of water, picture symbolizing justice for all, pictures of peace. And remember they are not overdosed with politically correct lectures. I learnt how we all can make difference in their lives in our own small ways. We taught them the importance of basic hygiene, basic knowledge of date and time, explained the mechanism of basic geographical phenomena, how to read maps and played a LOT. And on the last day of our five Sundays we took them out for a trip.

Thanks to generous funding by Mr. Nachiket Mor, we were able to take the kids out for an excursion in Nehru Planetarium and Science Centre and most of them enjoyed it immensely. It was a trip we are not going to forget in a hurry as both the kids and the volunteers relished each moment of the day.

At the end of it all, I discovered that I did not even notice when my self drawn boundary around myself has been erased by those children from BECC. No more I excuse myself out when I come across any child which I feel needs help. That is why unlike all the onlookers I did not look at him with sympathy when I came across six year old Arjun suffering from a dysfunctional leg due to polio at Goregaon railway station (on 13th June). But I approached him, talked to him and later we went to BECC where Arjun has found a new home and a bunch of wonderful friends. Had it been before my volunteering days then I’m pretty sure I would have been one of those sympathetic onlookers who boarded the next train to work and Arjun would have lived there in Goregaon station for few more days before moving to another railway station.

The volunteering at BECC has improved me a lot as a human and started an association which I believe is strong enough to be a long lasting one.