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| Kids cheer after receiving notebooks and pens |
August 28, 2008 : Light Musical concert for 150 Cancer Patients at Subhalaxmi Auditorium, Sion
ve young founders of Umang Foundation with me said R S Swaminathan (48 years), being a Umang Champion for this activity I was little worried earlier but I am very happy to see smile on the face of every patients from Tata Memorial Hospital said Swaminathan. We have almost 150 patients with us in the evening which have came from different hostels of Tata Memorial Hospital to attend this Musical Evening and today we will make sure that it will be memorable for every patients for many years from now. We will be organizing such events on a regular basis from now onwards added Swaminathan.
INTITIATIVE Four youngsters are doing their bit in creating awareness on child blindness through Umang. ANKIT RAWAL
‘The sky is the limit’ they say. Manav Makhija espoused this adage right from his school days not just figuratively. He wanted to become a pilot. Having cleared the Combined Defence Services Exam, he was all set to fly high. Alas, life isn’t always fair. He was diagnosed with colour blindness and he couldn’t fly.
Staggering stats
Imagine the trauma of those who cannot distinguish between colours. Think of those who have only one colour in their palette of life. Black! India is home to the world’s largest number of visually challenged people. Of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, over 15 million are from India, two million of which are children.What’s worth noting is that 80 per cent of these cases are curable or preventable through proper care and timely medical administration. Ironically, most of us tend to ‘turn a blind eye’ to this situation. All that we offer is a bit of sympathy.
However, it took four young enthusiastic people to be proactive in this regard and do their bit for society. They founded ‘Umang’ a Mumbai based Social Activity Group to promote awareness on child blindness.Ashish, founding member of Umang, who works at a leading investment bank in Mumbai says, “Our eyes are responsible for more than 78 per cent of the inputs received by our body. Eyes are very sensitive organs and are as important as our heart or brain. But we take our eyes for granted. We hardly get them checked up primarily because of neglect, difficulty in approachability, false perception of high costs involved and most importantly lack of awareness. Children are the worst affected because of long hours of TV, video games, lack of sleep and stress. There’s nothing like a one-to-one eye examination by a trained ophthalmologist. The limited number of ophthalmologists for a country as vast as ours makes it impossible to administer each and everyone.”
Hence, the first step to fill this gap is to create awareness among parents, teachers and society at large about child blindness and how it can be cured with timely treatment. This is what prompted Umang to run their campaign ‘Care4Vission’ (www.care4vision.org). It is a questionnaire administered by trained volunteers that is aimed at giving parents and teachers a feedback on visual health of a child. The test has been pilot tested on children in the age group of five to 16 years. It suggests further course of action in case of a possibility of visual impairment.
Ashish and his team have currently surveyed more than 22,000 students across various schools in Mumbai and have confirmed that the results have been staggering. It has not only accurately judged the visual health of the children but has also made parents and children more health conscious with regard to their eyes. Going forward Ashish says they want to move towards the slum areas especially Dharavi where the need is much more for such campaigns. Another initiative on similar lines is ‘e-strain’ (electronic strain) on the eye due to over exposure to the TV and the computer. This assumes a lot of significance in today’s world and for the new generation.
By giving tips for the eyes, Do’s and Don’ts, Eye Yoga, Ergonomics and other such initiatives, Umang Foundation is trying to spread awareness about the proper care one should take for the eye.In its short period of existence, Umang has been involved in many activities like promotion and support of the education of the underprivileged, support of orphanages, old-age homes, blood donation camps etc. Deena, another founding member of Umang, said that simple activities like singing, dancing, mono-acting etc. at an old-age home can bring smiles on the faces of the residents. She believes that a smile is never old.
Spreading out
Akshay, member of Umang mentioned that although they started the foundation with just four members and limited resources, their network is now spreading far and wide. Umang is now supported by a diverse network of working professionals, college students, doctors, journalists and a few elite citizens. Lot of people display a willingness to do something for the society, but are oblivious to the means of doing the same. It envisages providing the right platform to these people by helping them partner with NGOs and the appropriate set of people. For each activity there is an Umang champion who plans and implements it. Akshay adds that Umang aims to create a difference in the society by bringing the change we want to see in the society we live in. Truly, the initiatives by Umang seem to justify its name. Umang Foundation can be contacted at: umangfoundation@ gmail.com
Ankit is a II Year MBA student from S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai.
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"Let's go to an old age home next weekend," writes Akshay Shah in an e-mail to his network of friends. Not the typical weekend plan of a 22-year-old? But, this group of twenty-somethings is not ordinary, and so are their plans.
Although, the internet is the preferred tool of communication for Shah's network of around 30-odd IT professionals from various investment banks across the city, unlike Orkut or Facebook, their network -- Umang -- aims exclusively to help the under privileged in the society.
"Umang aims at one activity every week, be it spending time at a home for the aged or teaching street kids or holding blood donation camps," says Ashish Goyal, 24, an investment banker.
"All of us wanted to do something for the society, be it for the aged or the children. That is when we came up with Umang," Goyal said.
All volunteers with Umang have weekends off. "In the first week of July, we donated books and clothes to Takshashila Vidhyalaya at Ulhasnagar, while in the second week we collected 150 bottles of blood at a blood donation drive at TCS Campus, Kanjurmarg," said Shah, an IT professional and one of the founders of Umang.
"Last Sunday, we visited Justice HK Chainani's Elders Home in Mulund. We had great fun with the aged at home," said Shah. Sometimes, investing just little time is more than enough, said Hema Parmanandani, 28, a finance consultant. "Umang is open to anyone who has the best interests of the society at heart," she said.
Over the next few weekends, Umang will organise blood donation camps, find sponsors for educating the gifted poor children, and conduct awareness and education programmes to help clean the city.
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