Striving for a just and equitable society

Propelled by the desire to give back in full measure to society, a group of 200 young volunteers, mostly from the information technology and IT-enabled sectors have let their actions speak louder. The result is Youth for Seva.

Started as a platform to provide opportunities to youngsters who, despite time constraints, wanted to take active part in community development, the YFS aims to empower youth to become changemakers who will enable organisations and institutions to work without a vested interest. The goal of YFS is to support schools, NGOs, government hospitals and other organisations in the social sector through volunteers who work alongside in social spheres.

The group’s main area of focus is empowering the differently abled, education for children, environment and health. A recent initiative of YFS is summer camps for children which includes art and craft classes. “One of the highlight of our initiative is the ‘school kit drive’. Through this we try to provide school bags with five note books, two pens, geometry set , water bottle and crayons to the underprivileged children. Recently, we have also included steel plates, keeping in mind the mid-day meal,” Sudhakar Jha, volunteer YFS, Delhi, tells Metrolife.

“YFS Delhi is working for the ‘school kit drive’ for rehabilitation of children in Nepal along with other YFS groups in India,” says Swathi Ram, national coordinator of YFS.
It was also a part of Uttarakhand flood and Jammu and Kashmir flood relief group providing school kit to the children.

The organisation gets financial aid from the corporate and individual donors for school kit drive which costs about Rs 300 per kit. The volunteers make use of the second-hand computers of the corporates, which are installed at the government schools for computer classes. The Delhi YFS concentrates on spoken English classes, helping children with maths and problem solving and conducting science experiments with government school children. The Reading Room project in collaboration with other NGOs is already up and running and boasts of a self-study room for children at different centres including Gopaldham and Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar.

Set up in slums, these kendras are convenient and easily accessible to the children; one of the meeting points of the members is Dilshad Garden. The organisation also concentrates on the self-help groups for women, guiding the childrens’ parents in maintaining their bank accounts, getting life insuran­ce and imparting knowledge about various government schemes and policies. Health care sessions for wom­en are organised in kendras where the women are given lessons in first aid, skin disease, proper diets and the importance of visiting doctors and taking proper and timely medication.

Despite their busy schedules the volunteers make time to visit the nearest slums in their areas for their evening tuitions and to keep alive the hopes of the young children.  

Youth for Seva has designed several volunteering models to enable individuals get involved in community service. Volunteering is made easy as it caters to the individual’s interests and convenience with respect to time availability and location. The organisation offers internship to students to become a part and ‘experience the joy of giving’.