Spreading smiles and happiness

outSTANDING While girls her age may be partying hard, Latika Wadhwa has a nobler agenda in life. The social entrepreneur, writer and PR professional r

“Life is a beautiful gift God has given us. It should be valued and not taken lightly,” believes Latika Wadhwa. For her, the meaning of life is to make use of every second by helping those who need our help. That explains the inception of her non-profit organisation, MaStyle Care. It is an organisation whose sole purpose is to spread happiness and joy. Thus goes its motto: Collect! Donate! Bring Happiness!

“MaStyle Care is really My Style to Care,” explains Latika. “Instead of toeing the conventional line of working, we work in a manner that the society benefits through everything we do. Every member who is associated with MaStyle Care is focused towards the wellbeing of the society,” she says.

The beginning was not easy for Latika. Talking about the challenges she had to face in starting her venture, she says, “The biggest challenge was to convince people that you need to leave selfishness aside and come forward to work for the society. Though a lot of people supported the cause, there were many people who just showed me their back when it was time to do their bit.”

“The problem in the current society is that they though people earn well, they are reluctant to help. It is quite a challenge is to convince these people,” she adds on a serious note.

Chalk Walk
Latika undertakes online and offline campaigns on various social issues ailing the society, like the cause of the girl child, child labour, protecting the environment, welfare of senior citizens and orphans. One such step she introduced was India’s first ‘Chalk Walk To Stop Women
Violence’ under her campaign modules on women, which impacted the lives of more than 3,000 people who joined the cause.

We also conducted a poster-making competition on the issue of women’s safety in Meerut,” she explains. “We keep conducting surveys on harassment of women by collecting voices, views, opinions of parents, girls and others from across the country. This survey is published as a report to create awareness on the issue,” she adds.

As part of their campaign on child labour, the organisation carried out a drawing competition for underprivileged kids, where they were encouraged to draw on the subject of child labour. “Children were duly rewarded for their participation. We were also helping a school to set up a library by collecting books,”she says.

Follow your instinct
Latika followed her instinct of starting something new which would help society at large. Hence, she is very proud of MaStyle Care, which she considers is her biggest initiative. She recounts, “As a successful corporate person two years ago, I wanted to do something for society.

So the first thing I did was invest my savings for the benefits of those who are in need. I started spending half my salary in nurturing MaStyle Care by creating a platform for those issues that require awareness to be spread. From the first day when MaStyle Care was founded, until now, I’ve been working day and night to make it reach to the people who are in need.”

She explains further, “As social media is the most prevalent medium to create awareness, I employed the use of it and started using the website of my organisation as an initiative, wherein I personally handle the writing of the content. Through this, we spread awareness to society by bringing out stories of people who are remarkable and also of those people and issues that require our concern.”

‘Every moment is memorable’
Any memorable moments? “Since I’m passionate about all the tasks that we do, every moment is special. But there is this one moment, when I took a winner of our old-age campaign along with her grandmother to a restaurant. The grandmother was very happy to have been taken out. She said she hadn’t been to a restaurant since her husband’s death and she was overwhelmed that somebody made her feel special,” recounts Latika.

Ten years from now, she hopes to see MaStyle Care as a platform that is bringing smiles to people all across the world. “I would like to tell women that age is not a restriction to do anything. If I can do it at the age of 25, why can’t they do it, too? They should understand that together, if we take initiatives for the betterment of the society, then there will be no dowry, no foeticide and no domestic abuse. We, as women, should stand up and spread awareness in whichever country or city we are in. We need to understand that we are powerful enough to bring the change,” she maintains.

The parting message this relentless social entrepreneur has to offer is this: “Always live your dream no matter how many obstacles you have to face, no matter how many people reject your work. Don’t get discouraged if you are alone because it’s your dream and you have to achieve it for yourself only.”