Its just the Beginning !

Its just the Beginning !, originally uploaded by ~OM~ ॐ छाया चित्रालय.

30On30 is over !

Let me put it a bit differently... it has just started !!!

and the first month of this beginning was a huge boost to the cause ! here are some highlights :

- 30 on 30 website had over 2000 visitors in 30 days and more than 4000 page views

- 57% visitors were from India, 28% from the US, 3% from the UK, and rest from Japan, Canada, Singapore, Poland, Hongkong, UAE, and some others...

- There was also a poll on the 30on30 page which was taken by 52 people and 47 of them thought that this initiative has the potential to bring some change and 5 were not too sure

and now the most important statistics !!!!

I had thought that on my 30th birthday I would sell 30 photographs and raise Rs. 30000... Not much went as planned !!!

Through the 30 on 30 project, I managed to sell 69 prints of my pictures, and the project managed to raise Rs. 69000 !!!!

There would also be some more to this 69000 which comes from the dollar conversion, and some from the rounding off of the printing and shipping costs...

69000 !!!!

Ye !!!

30000 on 30000 on 9000 !!!!

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated, promoted, or wished for the success of 30On30...

and like I said, earlier, this is just the beginning!

Thank you for your support !

Thank you for your support !, originally uploaded by ~OM~ ॐ छाया चित्रालय.

30on30 was a huge success ! Something that I wished for and was secretly hoping for, but did not expect !!!

Will come back with a detailed post later on how the last one month was for 30on30...

Thanks again folks, and please do visit www.30on30.net for the photographs that were on sale !

I am finally off for a small getaway this weekend after the long winters ! Will be back soon !

30 on 30 Updates

30 on 30 Updates, originally uploaded by ~OM~ ॐ छाया चित्रालय.

A week ago it started with a some emails, FB and orkut events, and some blog posts...

In a week's time
- More than 15 blogs have the 30on30 tag or a related post
- I have written at least 150 emails responding to interests/queries on 30on30
- Have received about 40 "I am interested in buying this photograph" emails
- Have collected about Rs. 10000
- Placed 5 print orders out of which 2 have been received
- Have been overwhelmed by the encouraging words everyone had to say about the project
- Touched by some of the responses from friends known and unknown


Next steps
- Follow up with friends who have showed interest, to complete the orders
- Ensure the prints are ordered and shipped on time
- Spread the word around
- Be thankful to everyone who has participated in the project
- Reach much more than 30K... 50K maybe... or more... lets see

Thank you everyone !!! In the last week, we have done very well and are hoping to carry on with the progress. Thanks again for your support and wishes

Cheers,
30on30 team
Prashant Bhardwaj, Swati Seth, Bhumika Udernani, Subhadip Purakayastha
30on30

Time for a Sankalp...

So here I am... back to Sankalp and posting the much awaited paintings that won at the Painting Competition in Sankalp, Moradabad...

There were multiple things that I wanted to achieve from this entire set of activities:

1. Go out and do some fun activities for the kids in Sankalp
2. Not just donate something, but have some use of it
3. Bring back the paintings and do some fund raising for Sankalp

1 done
2 done
Click HERE for details of the day...
3 is what this post is about!!!

The aim is to collect at least Rs. 6000 which is the amount that is required for non-formal education of one kid in Sankalp. Non-formal education includes the education expenses, recreational opportunities, nutritional expenses and healthcare.

Here is the plan... You can select one of the 12 paintings below (click on the photo to see large) and write to me at prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com in case you are interested in the painting. The minimum that you should be willing to give is Rs. 500 and I shall leave it to you in case you'd like to give more. I am going to collect the entire money and hand over to ASK.

In case you' like to follow a different route of helping to the cause, please visit the ASK India website directly @ ASKIndia.org and browse around to find an opportunity.

Made by Sayma Sharif (Class VI). This one won because of the positive message in the painting, and the girl trying her hands on Water Colors for the first time. We had give three topics - Child Rights, - Child Labour and - Rains... Sayma wonderfully clubbed two of them to come up with this ! (Painting not available anymore; Arobindo has offered to take this one)

Made by Sana Afreen (Class VII). Lovely use of color... Very soothing to the eyes. The category she chose was Barish (Rains); (Painting not available anymore; Monika has offered to take this one)

Made by Irfan (Class (VII). A Very nice representation of Child Rights...(Painting not available anymore; Binnu :) has offered to take this one)

Made by Ishtiyak (Class VI). Lovely use of Color... Treat to the eyes... (Painting not available anymore; Aseem has offered to take this one)

Made by Saira (Class VII). Brilliant representation of Child Rights. Very nice use of color.(Painting not available anymore; Binnu :) has offered to take this one)

Made by Nazma (Class VI). Nazma was one of the winners because of a different thought she put into this. She made a canvas and then painted inside the Canvas... Nice thinking...(Painting not available anymore; Pankaj Trivedi has offered to take this one)

Made by Umar Farid (Class VI). Umar painted a question that stares at the face of many of us who are involved with the initiative... We have an answer, and we are working towards getting the answer being put in reality... (Painting not available anymore; Reeta Skeeter has offered to take this one)

Made by Shabeena Khan (Class VIII). Shabeena used the colors very nicely and the glitter too... It was a cloudy and rainy day in Moradabad and it took a while before this work dried... This is an absolute visual delight... (Painting not available anymore; Geet has offered to take this one)

Made by Shiri (Class V). Shiri's message in this work is simple, straightforward, and very clear. Lovely portrayal of the thoughts...(Painting not available anymore; Mayuri has offered to take this one)

Made by Rani Sartaj (Class VI). Very nice use of colors. Visually very soothing...(Painting not available anymore; Gaurav Agrawal has offered to take this one)

Made by Sadim (Class III). Sadim did not paint for any of the themes, but he made the Indian Flag and wrote the National Anthem for us... We could not have ignored this one...(Painting not available anymore; Subbu has offered to take this one)

Made by Salman (Class VI). Brilliant use of color, and a visually appealing representation of Rains...(Painting not available anymore; Kavita has offered to take this one)

Like I said before too, please contact me at prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com and let me know in case you interested in one of the above paintings/sketches. The minimum I am expecting from you is Rs. 500.

God Bless !!!

We painted the Weekend in Moradabad :)

Saturday Morning: 0300 hrs... my alarm goes off!!! And then the alarm on the other phone goes off too... I had just slept at like midnight... but getting up was important... I did... Woke up Ashu (my cousin) called up Tushar to wake him up and checked with Aro to make sure he was on his way to my place...

Why get up this early on a Saturday morning?
Valid question :)

We four were going to Sankalp, Moradabad... The same place I had visited in Feb'07... and wrote about it HERE!

Me and Aro had been discussing this trip for a while now, and last week when I realised that my travel plans were still very unclear I decided to go to Sankalp and do what was long due... So a few phone calls over the week, some bit of planning and we were all set... Roped in Ashu and Tushar as well... so we were four of us who were traveling to Sankalp and organise the painting competition...

The weather was good, the roads were good too wit a few exceptions... It did rain almost throughout the drive and at times it was too heavy to drive as well, however with one pit stop just about 10 kms after Gajraula (Reliance A1 Food Plaza) we reached Sankalp around 0800 hrs...

Found these beauties together on the grass @ A1 Plaza...

A Bunch of Happiness :)

I discussed the plan with Kalpana and Santosh who take care of the centre and we were all set to start the painting competition around 1030 hrs... The main centre has 100+ students and it was difficult to involve everyone in the competition, so we decided that we would let the teachers select some students from all the classes and have about 40 students participate...

We started on time around 1045 hrs and the kids finished their work around 1215 hours...

Our goodies for the Painting Competition :)

The kids could use the water colors, or the Crayons or Sketch Pens...

During the Painting Competition...

During the Painting Competition... (She went on to win a prize, for the strong message presented in a simple and very effective way)

During the Painting Competition...

One of the other winners in progress...

All done :) ready for a picture :)

We did manage a riot of colors :) and spread happiness :)

Some of the winners :) It was tough to decide what was better than the other... so we did not differentiate between the winning entries.. We could not have anyway :)

Post this we played "Stuart Little" (Hindi Version) for all the kids... (We had arranged for a LCD Projector, a laptop, the speakers and the DVD last night)... It was an amazing feeling to hear the kids laugh together and react to various scenes in the movie... One of the best experiences that I personally had EVER... So much so that I don't have enough words to write about the entire event!!! Now there was something for the kids after the movie too... We had prepared some questions from the movie, and the kids who answer those questions right were to get prizes...

The movie in Progress !!!

Once we finished the movie, we distributed the prizes for the Painting Competition and followed by the overwhelming question answer round!!!

The post movie huddle :) Had a great time here :)

We had asked everyone to first raise a hand and then we would pick who answers the question :) but as you might have already guessed for 100% of the questions everyone first answered the question and then raised their hands :) by the end of it we had exhausted all our questions and had to make a few set with our own knowledge of the movie :) it was fun...

Everyone would answer and then raise their hand :) It was tough to decide the winners :)

One question we asked was the name of Stuart Little's father... Well no one knew the answer, but one boy very confidently stood up and said "Daddy" :) I even asked the duration of the movie :) when we did not know what to ask :) and kids answered that too without raising any hands :) too bad it did not have a prize :)

I participated too :)

And then moved back to what I was slightly better at :) Capturing the moments :)

Managed to capture a game of Kho Kho too on the terrace :)

Windows XP :) Professional :)

Did I forget to mention that Gupta ji (The caretaker at the centre) also arranged for some Aalu, Pyaaz, and Palak Pakodas for us and the Chatney with Raw Mango and fresh Mint was just too good to resist... Don't know if I was eating the Pakodas with the Chatney or the Chatney with the Pakodas :)

What yummy Pakodas were they !!! Heaven !!!

Only one :) Love the way water rests on Rose Leaves :)

Once we were done at the Centre we moved around in the Community to get a first hand feel of the workshops...

The melting/moulding workshop... and smoke all around!

Molten Brass on fire...

Still from the same workshop...

An Art on its way towards extinction... The artist spends about 4-5 hours on every piece and gets around Rs. 50 per piece...

From the electroplating workshop...

Did not even realise how the time flew by and it was already 1645 hours when we started back for Delhi!!! All in All a wonderful day, an experience which words cannot express, and a feeling of satisfaction...

We have brought back the winning entries from the painting competition and the plan is to sell them with support from Online friends, and people we can reach via other mediums too... In one of my next posts I am going to post the paintings and if you are interested in buying one of them please do write to me @ prashantbhardwaj@gmail.com. I am currently in the process of finding out a place where I can get them framed for a decent price.

More about Sankalp:

Sankalp is an initiative of ASK (ASKINDIA.ORG) which aims at providing educating to the children who are involved in Child Labour in Moradabad... An initiative that is not 500+ children strong and going strong with its committed workforce... The teachers for the schools also come from the local community itself, and hence help the educated local women as well.

You can read more about Sankalp, ASK and my previous visit by clicking the following links:

ASK

Sankalp on ASK Website (The page also has a few photo essays that I did the last time I visited Sankalp)

My earlier visit to Sankalp (http://rightmore.blogspot.com/2007/02/ask-me-how.html)

Pictures from Sankalp and Moradabad (http://flickr.com/photos/prashantbhardwaj_ut/sets/72157594564953401/)

My last picture of the day :) All smiles... all happiness :) All Funn !!! Loved it !!!

ASK-ing for More and Getting it...

Joy comes with Passion... and Passion usually fuels the will to do things...

My joy came a few weeks ago when I managed to visit Ambikapur and 3 villages near the place on a project related to Sanitation being managed by ASK

Some information about the project before I carry on with what I did there...

"The Chattisgarh PMU is a Gender Sensitive Sustainable Sanitation improvement and management through community initiative project. This was a demonstrative project over a period of one year. The project was implemented in areas where ADB funded rural road project has been completed.

The project has two main objectives. These are:

* To successfully demonstrate a sustainable sanitation program model implemented and managed collectively by the community stakeholders
* To ensure the availability of a practical process based manual on implementation of sanitation program

The strategies applied for the project were:

* Strengthening of Self Help Groups
* Formation of women federation
* Formation of Village sanitation committees (VCS)
* Formation of Project management committee (PMC)."

My journey from Chandigarh to Ambikapur took almost 18 hours...
Chandigarh - Delhi : Train in about 4 hours (including the road travel to home from station)
Delhi - Banaras flight : about 2.5 hours
Banaras- Ambikapur Road trip : About 9 hours

The best part of the travel was being introduced to the sleeper class buses.. not that I had not seen them before but getting to travel in them on a hot and humid evening, was something that i was not really looking forward to :)

Finally after being in an auto with about 10 people with all my bags on me, and a wait of about 30 odd minutes somewhere almost outside Banaras, the bus finally moved... Had Bindiya for company and that helped me forget most of the issue i was having so far... Manas Da who was travelling with us, also made me pretty comfortable with his presence. Never felt as if I was meeting him for the first time... My faith in the vibes and that they matter a lot actually got strengthened after I met him...

So Bindiya and me spent a lot of time chatting off in the bus and she also managed to freak me out my moving her legs in the dark... scary !!! phew... did manage to sleep for a while though after getting scared !!! The bus stopped at a place called Renukoot for dinner around midnight, and we had some amazing dal and roti there...

Finally managed to reach Ambikapur, which is the project office, around 0300 hrs on the morning of 21st July... Met Puneet who has been instrumental in the success of the project and slept for a couple of hours before moving towards our destination... the first village of the three we were to visit... Hirratikra... about 30 odd kms away from Ambikapur, which is the district headquater for the Sarguja District in Chattisgarh, This village is the second on the road built under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojna (PMGSY)

Out of the five villages on the road, three were chosen by ADB and ASK to work on the project, namely Hirratekra, Korea and Kandrai...

We spent the 21st in Hirratekra talking to the people there... Here is what I learnt...

SHG - SelfHelp Group
Small groups made by womenfolk of the village. And women in the group pool small amount of money say 10 bucks or 20 bucks a month to the group account, which is usually there in the bank. In case of a need, a request can be made to the lead of the group for a loan and the interloaned amount is returned to the group at easy installments... This basically serves to make the women stronger in managing their activities and also thinking....

VSC : Village Sanitation Committee
This is now renamed as the VWSC, the Village Water and Sanitation Committee, and works mainly to ensure that sanitation and water related issues in the villages are looked at. Instrumental in interlocking with the govt and administration and is recognised by the Govt. as a team as well.

So the SHG and the VWSC worked together after about 6 months of efforts put into strengthening the teams in these three villages.

About the context of the project:
Before the road was constructed, the people in the villages used the area around the paths for their daily sanitation needs and after the construction of the roads, the immidiate effect was on the sanitation needs of the people especially women as now they had to go to the fields at odd hours and far away from their homes... It caused more trouble to the old women and the young girls as they needed someone to accompany them... the solution to this is individual toilets in all the homes.. and both the groups that i mentioned above with some very very active support from ASK and some funding from ADB worked together to achieve the target....

Our two days (First in Hirratekra, and the second in Korea and Kandrai) were spent in identifying how the project went, what is it that we started from? what is it that we have achieved? what is it that still needs to be done? is the work and the project sustainable, even after ASK and ADB move out?

Also asked the representatives of the villagers to rate the various activities on various scales... nothing different than what we do in our work places... exactly the same, the difference being that there are no fancy boardrooms they work on, there are no whiteboard markers or emails.. but there still were Minutes of meeting registers, account books, meeting schedules, fine payer lists, etc etc etc... amazing professionalism by people who are probably not even well educated...Made me wonder what is it that us educated and so called literate people are all about... is there a difference? it seemed to me that these people were much more better off than most of us in the cities...

ASK has done some amazing work in making these internal groups very strong and give them enough motivation in the last one year to keep the project going even after they move out... simple salute to the people who have made this difference... and continue to do it over and over and over again... Even the people recognised that effort and i could see it in their eyes when we were moving out... Some of the things that the villagers made were related to how they could not get more information and were keen on understanding what is happening in the world more than before, the way the women in the villages have gathered to own the improvement of the entire system around... fantastic effort and good response... God Bless...


On the more personal side, I was scared by Snake scares and Naxal presense in the area by Mr Puneet pretty successfully...
Made some amazing friends with Manas Da and Puneet over the few days I spent with them...
Got closer to one of the nicest people I know, Bindiya... and knowing her more is very nice...
Drove around a honda activa with a scared Bindiya as the co-rider :)
Had an amazing sweet called HeeraMani in Ambikapur...
And had a great time... full of happiness, fun, warmth, excitement, pride, and more...

And going away from Ambikapur while the rest of them were still there was not easy... anyway... I left and managed to stay for a day in Banaras showing myself and my camera some parts around the holy river Ganges and the famous Banras Ghats... not much to write about Banaras... will let the pictures speak soon...

Pictures here...

ASKing For More...

I know of many who give up...

I know of many who keep struggling..

I know of many who crib and cry and not do much about things..

And I know of some who get up and make things happen...
And one of these people is Priyanka...


Someone who I was introduced to about 7 months ago... Thanks to another go-getter Deepak...
Priyanka and I worked on a small picture project for ASK in Feb'06. You might want to read about that HERE.


and today, Priyanka managed to complete ASK's website... It was a big and tough task... which needed her to know much more then what she already knew and what Priyanka has achieved almost single handedly, with tit-bits of assistance from friends, is great...


Check out the website here.

God Bless you girl.. you are a rockstar...