Nationals 2011

It has been a long journey for SIFE SRCC. The regionals, the nationals semi-finals, the nationals finals - and although the entire journey was over in less than a week, it feels like an eternity. We won second place in the Nationals 2011!

After all, who doesn't like having a platform to present what they've done throughout the year? It's nice to receive recognition for a year of hard work, and every team at the Regionals and Nationals throughout India well deserved it.

On behalf of SIFE SRCC, I congratulate every team for their effort to empower people throughout the year. A special congratulations to SIFE S.S.C.B.S - SIFE India Champions 2011 and representative team for SIFE India at the prestigious SIFE World Cup! S.S.C.B.S well deserved it and we at SIFE SRCC will be waiting for them to bring India the World Cup!

I'd also like to thank all fellow SIFE teams for their support for SRCC at the Nationals. It's nice when we can forget that we belong to different colleges and be united under the banner of 'Students in Free Enterprise'; be united in our goal to make a difference.

Mumbai is fabulous at this time of the year. We experienced much-awaited short, pleasant spells of rain. We visited the amazing Marine Drive, ate at the famous Bademiya, and roamed around all night in the NITIE Campus.

Feel, feel, feel.

Photos and more on our Facebook page - Click here

THE launch

SIFE SRCC has reached a milestone - we have officially 100 rickshaw pullers under our Life on Wheels project!

The launch was held on 21st January in SRCC. Guess who the Chief Guest was? Hon'ble Chief Minister of Delhi, Smt. Sheila Dikshit, consented to be our Chief Guest and attended the function.

The set-up for the function was elegant - the stage and seating area surrounded by our very special designer rickshaws designed by leading designers in Fashion Design Council of India. The Chief Minister was astounded when she entered the function and she took her time in inspecting each designer rickshaw, all the while surrounded by the media. Mr. Sunil Sethi, President of Fashion Design Council of India, and our guest of honor (AND an alumnus of our SRCC), showed these rickshaws and the inspiration behind them to the Chief Minister.

Our other guests of honour Mr. Sanjay Sinho, CEO of American India Foundation and Mr. V.K. Khanna, Field General Manager, Punjab National Bank.

The Chief Minister, in her speech, spoke about the need for a vehicle-free campus and said she will speak to the Vice Chancellor of the University to initiate steps for the same. She talked about how she herself was a student at Delhi University, and how the only noises one should hear in a campus like ours is the noise students make.

The launch was HUGE for SIFE SRCC folks - this was our first major event! 100 more is our target by the end of this year. Keep up the spirit, fellow SIFE-mates!

Larsen and Toubro visits campus

Work in full swing for the next rickshaw launch - and this time, it's HUGE! 100 rickshaws, folks! Life on Wheels has achieved wonders in such a short period of time! Rickshaw pullers are more than enthusiastic to have bank accounts to their names and rickshaws they can call their own. And not just any rickshaw, but SIFE rickshaws - modified to give you the perfectly comfortable rickshaw ride! Every other rickshaw on North Campus roads seems to be a SIFE rickshaw now.

On Friday, a few of us from the SIFE team went to Shiela Dixit's residence to invite her to the launch ceremony. We took flowers for her, and Calvin gave them to her. Now, he was all for publishing an article titled "Chief Minister accepts flowers from smart college boy and agrees to meet in future". But unfortunately I'm myself responsible for what I write on this blog, so I can't put the blame on anyone else if I wrote a post like that.
Anyway, she was more than enthusiastic to come to the event. She congratulated us on doing such a good job
for a needy community and said she would definitely come to the launch.

Later on Friday, we had another event with Larsen and Toubro. In an effort to help rickshaw pullers with their children's education, Larsen and Toubro very kindly provided those kids with school bags, a notebook, crayons, a pencil box and similar stationary. Rickshaw pullers came with their children, and the function formally began with a documentary screening of how Life on Wheels was conceived and implemented, followed by a screening of L&T's portfolio as an engineering firm. Dr. Abhay Kumar and our principal P.C Jain then addressed the gathering, followed by Mr. Anshu Gupta from L&T.

Did I mention how cute the children were? Most of them were little kiddos below 10 years of age. When they walked in, they were shy and wanted to hide behind their fathers. When they walked out, they were gleaming with happiness, holding their brand new bags and clutching chocolates in their hands.

Happy kiddos are cute - any day, any time.

Rickshaw launch, Health checkup and Certificates for Seniors

As with every post, there is good news, folks! SIFE SRCC now has over 40 SIFE rickshaws on North Campus roads! Totally awesome, right? We had our rickshaw launch ceremony for 20 rickshaws on 22nd of this month. Brand new dazzling rickshaws were lined up neatly at the SRCC parking lot with their proud owners standing beside them. Laddoos were distributed to everyone and I find it extremely important to mention here that Barun (SIFE member) ate 3 laddoos in the light of a severe laddoo shortage situation during the ceremony. The ceremony was formally inaugurated by our Principal and refreshments were distributed to the rickshaw pullers.

I had the happy privilege of seating myself on the driver's seat of one of those dazzling SIFE rickshaws, and Calvin and Pratima were quick to get on the passenger seat and have me pull the rickshaw. Well, folks, I've resolved to never bargain with a rickshaw puller again, because pulling rickshaws is real tough and tiring.

On 18th of this month, the health checkup organized by Max India Foundation took place. Mrs. Mohini Daljeet Singh, CEO of Max India Foundation, herself arrived and attended the health camp. Rickshaw pullers' turnout was great - most of them came with their wives and elderly parents and got their checkups done. Max India Foundation will provide spectacles to those who require them, and will also organize for surgeries for some rickshaw pullers requiring the same.

The Certificate Distribution Ceremony for the SIFE 2nd years and 3rd years happened on 22nd, immediately after the rickshaw launch. The Principal distributed certificates to everyone and confessed that initially he thought of SIFE and its activities as completely ridiculous and used to wonder by Dr. Abhay Kumar (our faculty advisor) was wasting his time on such rubbish. But now he recognizes us for our superhuman intellect. Okay, I made up the stuff about superhuman intellect, but he did appreciate our work. The certificates, by the way, were so pretty! It's worth working for SIFE just to be able to have our own certificates next year! Radhika, SIFE SRCC outgoing President, appointed Mehak as our new President and Ashima as our co-President for the year. I'm glad I'm not Radhika, it would have been the most difficult decision of my life to decide which one of Ashima and Mehak should be president.

More disbursement, more news

Making plans to make a difference, and then watching the change happen before your eyes - can there be anything more satisfying?

I'm absolutely loving the fact that every time I post an update on this blog, I've got tons of good news to tell you all. Firstly, on 9th of September, 9 rikshaws will be disbursed. 9 new owners, 9 new empowered people, 9 new smiles. Second week of September - Certificate Distribution Ceremony (subject to availability of Chief Guest). On 18th of September, Max India Foundation is organizing a health checkup for the rikshaw pullers and their children. On 22nd of September, 22 more rikshaws will be disbursed. Hi-five, guys!

This time, SIFE is going to be a little more cautious and allow the rikshaw pullers themselves to inspect the quality of rikshaws before disbursement.

In the meanwhile, my fellow SIFE-mates are busy opening bank accounts, handling loans, arranging for uniforms, and importantly coordinating with the vendor regarding price and quality issues. The bad quality of some rikshaw elements was a mistake that won't be repeated. SIFE apologizes to all the rikshaw pullers who have had problems with their new rikshaws (though I'm pretty sure no rikshaw puller is going to be reading this blog - heck, not all SIFE members read this blog, let alone the rikshaw pullers - yet SIFE apologizes anyway and will do its best to maintain quality from now on)

Other SIFE members are busy surveying rikshaw pullers for certain details about them and their families, their health, their expenses etc. to facilitate activities with Max India Foundation and L&T. It's really interesting that most rikshaw pullers don't clearly know their age or their children's ages! When I ask them how old they are, they give an estimate - saying they're "probably" 30 years old! And it's also really nice to hear that most of their children go to schools. Wait, did I mention how smart a rikshaw puller looks in his SIFE uniform? I'll try to post a picture tomorrow!

We are facing one problem though - the English training programme by Etasha Society isn't confirmed yet. Since rikshaw pullers won't be allowed to ply in North Campus during the Commonwealth Games, if we start the English lessons now we'd have to take a break during the Games - which will make them forget all that they learnt. If we were to start after the Games, it's really hard because of exams in November. Hope someone suddenly gets a brainwave and a fantastic idea on how to go about this.

If I don't get 5 comments on this post, you guys are dead the next SIFE meeting.