Share your living – Chennai Social Service

There are people in this world who have different passions, hobbies, craze for something, some have a particular fondness towards, food or music, or games or animals, or any thing existing in the world. But there are some people in this world who have keen interest, love and passion toward the mankind, towards the service of humanity, towards helping the needy and spreading warmth all around.

One such online community on the social networking site of Orkut is Chennai Social Service, where members are dedicated to serve the deprived, and make a difference in the present world scenario where lies nothing more then selfishness and egotism.

The community was started by Satish who is the founder and his friend Nagappan. Initially it started with the name of Chennai social work, like any other community on Orkut. Slowly members started increasing and their support and feedback tiled the way for the community to grow and start from their first step on the ground. It took off with orphanages, children home and old age homes and then their attention was captured by social issues as well. While working they realized, what they are doing is not a work but a service and so the name was transformed to Chennai Social Service.

No more a mere virtual community, but a synchronized organization, Chennai Social Service is now a registered NGO, which has its own website too. It’s now an institution which focuses on multiple issues of society, working in separate teams and departments and six Board of directors in the trust. They are planning to make separate NGO for each of the teams under the tree of CSS in the near future.

Aditi Nandhu, aka Nandhini, the Head-Resource Mobilizing of Chennai Social Service and the moderator of the community, explained in detail how the community and organization works in a discussion held at Rated-WOW! Community. A medical student of final year, Aditi always had an ardor to do something for the society and help people and while she was searching for a podium to bring her dream in action she got to know about this community through the Google search and quite impressed by the quick retort from the community she joined in the team of this dedicated group of people in their mission to “Share their Living”.

Talking about the functioning of community online, it’s a completely moderated community and is well managed as it should be, because of its nature of sheer importance. There are no dead or repetitive threads. The forum has threads like, Suggestion Box, where people can post their suggestions other than those discussed in the meetings, Links of interest, for various related information which people might be searching for, CSS meetings, where the MOM of the meeting is posted, Activities at weekend, which is about the activity details, like venue and time, Notice board, here members can discuss about the activities and various projects, Reports, reports of various activities are posted here, Blood requirements, which is updated whenever there is need of specific blood group in Hospitals, etc.
Apart from online moderation community needs more work offline on grounds and there are strict guidelines which they follow to avoid unpleasant incidents .Members are requested not to share their contact information online and specially the female members. Aditi says, “CSS is very conscious to steer clear from all the untoward incidences that the ORKUT is famous for. Lets make this community, CSS, an example to change the mentality of the people about ORKUT.”

CSS focuses on analyzing the issues and then taking an action on it. With the growth, financial hindrances started coming on the surface and thus the community made a rule, that whoever gets registered with them needs to pay an initial sum of minimum Rs10 and then subsequently a minimum of Rs10 each week as per the capability and financial position of the members.
There are about more then 1000 members in the community but not all of them are active. There are only about 50 members who are active an take part in online weekly meetings held, but there are a lot of members who are not online but are a part of this family who have reached them after watching their work or event through articles about CSS in newspapers and media.
The members of this group are all from different fields, be it business, doctors, engineers, sports personnel, or college and school students. There are few members who have made their kids studying in school in sixth and seventh standards a member of CSS!

Now I am presenting here the detail structure of their teams and the projects, running and planned as described by Aditi:

There are nine teams in action.
The members can opt for their areas of interest to work with, they can select any 3 of 9 Groups and they are guided by a team head .Every team have to submit their plans for next one year and if there are any events planned in short time they have to report before every Wednesday to the Project Coordinator or BOD.

1. ECG – Environment care group

Projects Running:
Bring your own Bag is a program/activity to create awareness to the public about the growing environmental issues by plastic/poly bag use. It is a program that brings together the retailer, the consumer rallying behind one cause—to improve the environment we live in by supporting an important cause

Proposed Projects:

1) Banning usage of plastics in and around Chennai.
2) Implementing Effective Waste Management System.
3) Voicing against Global Warming.
4) We also donate saplings to interested people to grow in their respective areas and houses).
5) Will plant a tree on the occasion of Earth Day (We will have this on April 26th Sunday because April 22nd 2009 falls on Wednesday), will identify the hill station, forest where we can plant trees.
6) Street play at Food World, Pizza Hut and etc. After each play, we will distribute cloth bags to the crowd on complimentary basis.
7) Posters, banners and T-shirts have to be printed with eco message. CSS wear these T-shirts during all their visits for the eco work. (We have to ask Pollution Control Board to sponsor 100 T-shirts, 100 caps, 2000 new cloth bags and 1000 paper bags with eco messages).
Spread the word about the BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) campaign! – We are doing and we continue to do this.
9) Plan to do classroom activities to help students understand global warming and its possible effects on human beings. /fun bag to someone as a gift and tell them that they should use it for shopping.

2. Gramodharan (Village and slum Development):

This group would look into villages and slums that can be adopted to nurture and improve their quality of life. This is also part of the initiative to lift them out of poverty through self sustaining and honorable way of life.
Proposed Projects:

1) Women Empowerment thru SHG’s & Higher Education.
2) Elderly Care Unit.
3) Youth Development Force – Employment & Entrepreneurship.
4) Health Care.
5) Personality Development.
6) Sports.

3. Aravanaipu (Old age homes and Orphanages):
This is an initiative to highlight the importance of caring for senior citizens & Orphanages who have been pushed to the brink of total neglect and apathy by this society. The team shall identify the places and gauge their immediate needs and also organize regular get together with these elderly people on every occasion to celebrate be it birthday or festivities or religious functions. Glad to say that we have visited more than 20 such institutions.

Activities Done:

Spending time with the Kids and the old age people, singing & dancing with them, celebrating functions and birthdays with them, distributing sweets & snacks, dress and toys, playing games, mobilizing school fees for the orphan students, distributing school uniforms, stationeries and notebooks, Supplying medicines for the Old people, acting as a link between companies and the Old Age Home and fulfilling their requirements.

Proposed Projects:

1) Prepare the List of Orphanages, Child Homes and Old Age Homes in and around Chennai.
2) Prepare the statistics of those homes like, their financial status, their requirements and their needs.
3) Act as a bridge between corporate and these homes and fulfilling their requirements.
4) Arranging competition to these kids to showcase their talents.
5) Arranging picnics.
6) Celebrating functions with kids and neglected old people.

4. VSCRIBE (Reading and Writing for Visually Challenged):
VSCRIBE is a group of volunteers for helping Visually Impaired students in their course work or assignment completion. This help could be in form of scribing, recording prose’s or text book contents and sitting for exams. VSCRIBE is a branch of CSS activity Group and focuses mainly on Visually Impaired student’s educational needs.
The volunteer spends quality time with the student in assisting with his/ her studies. The medium of instruction is mainly Tamil and with little English language based subjects.

Projects Running:
1) Sri Sathya Sai Trust is conducting a reading session for the visually challenged students on every Sunday at PSBB School, Thirumalai Pillai Road, Tnagar. For the past 2 years CSS members are rendering volunteering service. There we will be reading out the lessons, write assignments, etc. At an average 160 students will be coming every week. Session lasts for 2.5 hrs from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm which will be followed by a lunch from 12:30 pm to 01:30 pm. Every week one of the volunteer or scriber or a public will sponsor for the lunch.

2) Karuna Vidhya, a subsidiary of Rotaract, is helping visually challenged students by lending books, recording in the form of cassettes and CD’s and also teaches the students to operate computer through JAWS. We will volunteer there and help them to write CD’s, teach students to operate systems and also we will help them by recording their subjects in cassettes and CD’s. (Time: Every Saturday between 11 am to 2 pm).

3) We also have contact with ISCRIBE, run by the organization called Vidhya Sagar. We will get a call from them when they required scribe.

Some Facts:
We are supporting visually challenged students for their exam by writing on behalf of them as they dictate. Please find the details below:

16 sessions went successfullyà19th May 2008 – 28th May 2008 ——–
3 sessions went successfullyà9thJune 2008 – 11th June 2008 ——–

In the month of November, we supported 7 students to write their exam.
Total No. of sessions: 27
Total No. of Scribes attended: 16

Apart from this, we also supported for the CSGAB (College Students and Graduate Association for Blind), by volunteering for their events.

Proposed Projects:

1) Nurturing the importance of Scribing and thus increasing the number of Volunteers.
2) Conducting Job Fairs for the Visually Challenged Students.
3) Conduct Cultural Events to bring their hidden talents to the world.
4) Start a Reading Session under the banner VScribe.
5) To conduct health camp for visually challenged students to determine whether any one has chance for eye sight transplantation.
6) Starting a free library for the visually challenged students.

5. CAP (Child Abuse Prevention):

Child sexual abuse is a form of child abuse in which a child is abused for the sexual gratification of an adult or older adolescent. In addition to direct sexual contact, child sexual abuse also occurs when an adult indecently exposes their genitalia to a child, asks or pressures a child to engage in sexual activities, displays pornography to a child, or uses a child to produce child pornography.

Activities Done:
8th June, 08 – Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Program focused on spreading the information in a silent way to parents and kids. Organized entertainment games for the kids, conducted painting competition and Signing Campaign, Guindy.

Proposed Projects:
1)Conducting awareness campaign in different parts of the city.
2) Arranging PTA in government schools.
3) Voicing against different issues related to Child Abuse.
4) Conducting counseling to the parents and kids.
5) Printing information in the School Diaries.
6) Planning to conduct a awareness campaign in coast villages outside Chennai.

6. Nalanda (Sponsoring for Education):

This team would spend time in identifying deserving students hailing from unaffordable background or who cannot support their cost of education will be supported; the only criteria for such students would be merit.

Activities Done:
As part of our initiative we have collected funds for an Ethiraj college student for her second semester studies.

Proposed Projects:

1) We intend to make the scholarship as a rotating scheme wherein the graduating student will support another student when he or she lands up in a job.
2) Secondly we would be identifying the meritorious students preferably in their graduation or +2 completed; and put forward the proposal in front of corporate for funds.
3) Supporting primary and secondary school students with career guidance, daily subject requirements and other necessary requirements be it health camp, societal awareness and extra-curricular activities.
4) Adopting a orphanage and totally support the kids education with the help of sponsors.

7. Red Drops (Blood Donation and Organ Donation awareness):

This team basically connects with all volunteers in and around Chennai and communicates the hospitals requirement for blood in cases of surgeries, transplant, blood transfusion and also treatment of blood related disorders.
I am happy to share that our website was launched on 26th Jan 09. (www.reddrops.co.in)

Projects Running:

1. Primary task is creation of a communication and database tool for easier access of information and also communicating the requirement to right set of people, this is being implemented through Red Drops web site.
2. Next to encourage people to voluntarily donate blood through regular blood camps.

8. Disaster Management Group:

Any type of Disaster is a threat to all States and to all peoples. And timely help for the needy people is the goal of this team during both manmade and natural calamities.

Proposed Projects:
1.Increasing awareness through analyzing, and spreading information and knowledge.
2. Ensuring rapid and coordinated response to any natural calamity.
3. Ensuring immediate treatment for any illness that may result from a natural calamity or manmade disaster.
4. First aid classes and awareness campaign.

Action Plan:
Implementing training and awareness program in Schools, Colleges and Work places.

9. Road Safety Group

So this was the complete lay out and framework of the working of this society. All this isn’t a cake walk and members are still facing issues like financial crisis and absenteeism of the members.

When asked to Aditi if she has any message to convey to the world she says with appeal, “I request everybody to “Share your living” be it small tiny things and making few people smile to anything like blood donation or supporting a child education.
Its never late you can start at any age any time. You just have to take an initiative and sure you can find a way in your area in your place someone will sure need your help.
I also request not to encourage beggars with money and give it to any organization like us. They are becoming lazy just because we find them pity. And Use cloth bags instead of plastic bags and save your environment, if you can change people. Around you will change
and finally I request people. Who are interested in blood donation to register in
www.reddrops.co.in
Can join our family at:
Web site: www.chennaisocialservice.org
Email: chennaisocialservice@yahoo.com and chennaisocialservice@gmail.com

I am thankful to every dedicated member of CSS and the pillars of CSS who not only thought volunteering is everyone’s duty but it can also be fun and useful to the society and country and to change this place to a better place that we dream of.”

I lack words here to express in words about the way this community is working and should be praised. It’s very easy to strive for our self and fight for our own needs but taking out time, taking pain and serving others in today’s materialistic world is something unmatchable. Hats Off to the community on behalf of Orkutheroes!

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Tagged as: causes, NGO, orkut