Nostalgia and the Bliss: Tracing the Beginnings

Azmat and Kayakalp. Repossessing Respect and Pulling the Strings of Change. Two words that have come a long way to define our communities. Two phrases that take the center stage for describing our projects and our work. Together, they have travelled a way so long that they are now the very identity of Enactus SRCC. Both of the projects have grown tremendously in the last two years, since the time they were first taken up. In the following conversation, Nehal Garg and Priyanka Ravishankar, our Advisory Board Members, recount the initial phase of the projects and reminisce about the journey that these projects have undertaken:

Q: So what experiences can you share with us from the launch of the projects?

Priyanka: Before the launch, an important work that had to be done was to finalise the name of the project. For today's Project Azmat, some of the top contenders were Imdad, Imkan, Vedanta and Aapti. Now to think that we’d call Azmat anything besides that is really unthinkable. Even for Kayakalp, we did have quite a few deliberations about the name, didn’t we Nehal?

Nehal: Yes, as the SIFE tradition goes, we think, re-think and overthink everything to make sure it is perfect. (Chuckles) Kayakalp means transformation or rejuvenation. So the question was whether the name was compatible with our project objectives.

Original launch poster for Project Kayakalp

P: Right! Azmat was conceptualised when one of our super seniors, Mehak gave us an article about manual scavengers. And then in January, on that cold winter morning we went on a full team visit to Nekpur, the village that we began our project with. I remember that Nehal and I had travelled together that freezing morning, catching the first metro.

N: Yeah, the first metro, 5:45 AM (Laughs)

P: That was the first big team visit, when we had all the surveys and the field research done. And after that, I remember that we had this big team meeting in the front lawns when we were debating upon which product to be taken up in the model.

N: And not just this, we had one at India gate too where we kept on deliberating. We thought that it should’ve something to do with the cleaning, probably because it might do some sort of a poetic justice, given the profession the women were previously practicing. So we came down to Mr. Sunil Jain, who actually showed us how detergent-making works and we were convinced.

P: So yes, and now we have a detergent brand called Neki and you all should buy a packet of Neki!

N: We never leave a chance at brand promotion, do we?

We decided to have an official launch for both our projects. So we had a small ceremony with our Faculty adviser, Abhay sir, the SRCC Principal, Dr. P.C. Jain and the whole SIFE team. 

Original launch poster for Project Azmat

P: We had all the descriptions typed out on Facebook and were all set! We called Abhay sir to click on the button to ‘post’ it and the projects were finally launched that day. We felt so proud about it.

P: And today, the projects have grown quite a lot. We’ve had two Student Volunteer Programmes to break into the market in Azmat, and have had a large number of performances and productive collaborations for Kayakalp. 

N: It’s quite a legacy, which your seniors passed onto you, you to your juniors and the cycle keeps going on. And Enactus has become a family away from home. No matter where you go, which part of the world you are in, your heart always belongs to Enactus!

P: Absolutely, some of my best friends are in Enactus, and it’s actually a family! Whenever I finish a class, I always like to go to the co-op area in college so that I can ‘bump into some Enactus people’. My other friends used to call me up and say “I won’t ask you how is life, I’ll just ask you how’s SIFE, because that’s all you talk about!” (Laughs)

N: Haha same!  We both feel that the new teams have evolved this vision that we started with two years ago into something beautiful and will continue doing so.

P: We really are proud of you all and we hope and we know that you will take the projects to even greater heights and make many more lives much better, in terms of quality and quantity!

N: So, here’s to many more years of Repossessing Respect and Pulling the Strings of Change! All the best to everyone from the both of us!

-Compiled by Bhumika Gupta