Teach For India Survey

Dear All,

Please find link below to a marketing survey on surveymonkey.com. It would be great if you can forward it to as many people (family, friends, friends’ friends and their relatives & more 🙂  to fill it up. it will not take more than 2 to 3 mins. The survey will help us get an idea of where, how and what one has heard of Teach For India if they have and how best we can use this data to focus our marketing efforts.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=zgJYARbooSEvwGkQHXRSZg_3d_3d

Read Full Post »

Joy Of Giving @ Nikos, Pune

Read Full Post »

The Pune Free Hugs Campaign in Pune

The Free Hug Campaign is meant to be a random act of kindness, a selfless act performed by a person for the sole reason of making others feel better.

The Free Hugs Campaign began as one person’s attempt to make a difference and reach out to others to brighten their lives. Juan Mann describes his inspiration as follows:

“Standing there in the arrivals terminal, watching other passengers meeting their waiting friends and family, with open arms and smiling faces, hugging and laughing together, I wanted someone out there to be waiting for me. To be happy to see me. To smile at me. To hug me. So I got some cardboard and a marker and made a sign. I found the busiest pedestrian intersection in the city and held that sign aloft, with the words “Free Hugs” on both sides.

And for 15 minutes, people just stared right through me. The first person who stopped, tapped me on the shoulder and told me how her dog had just died that morning. How that morning had been the one year anniversary of her only daughter dying in a car accident. How what she needed now, when she felt most alone in the world, was a hug. I got down on one knee, we put our arms around each other and when we parted, she was smiling.”

So here’s to our very own Free Hugs Campaign.
– On friday, 2 October 2009
-Get together at the M.G.Road Barista around 7.30
-Just bring along a small poster which says “FREE HUGS”
-Invite friends, family, friends’ friends, colleagues etc etc to join
-Walk around offering free hugs to whoever will take them.
-Have a jolly good time. Yay!

Visit : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=141653801763&ref=nf

Read Full Post »

Be the Change – COME ALIVE Event

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive” – Howard Thurman

COME ALIVE
If given a day to BE JUST YOU…
What would you do? What would you do?
Hike up the mountain or dance like the wind?
Paint the town red or like a song bird would you sing?
Would you smile all day or read all night?
Or would you just be with nature and enjoy the sight?
Would you stop and stare and leave no wishes to spare?
To live that one dream for a day…would you dare?
Would you take the plunge? Would you take that dive?
My special special one …
What is it that makes you come alive?
-Sampada Nayak

Date: Friday, October 2, 2009 ; time :3:00pm – 7:00pm

Location: Assembling Venue: Manohar Mangal Karyalaya,Mehendale Garage, Near Mhatre Bridge, Off Karve Road, Pune.

To Register contact: mansi.panjwani2009@teachforindia.org ; 09870220888.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=138166741701&ref=nf

Read Full Post »

Jerry Rao and TFI

Jaithirth (Jerry) Rao, Chairman and CEO of MphasiS. Mr. Rao founded MphasiS, an IT solutions and BPO company, one of the top 5 Indian BPO companies. Prior to founding MphasiS, Mr. Rao has held several positions at Citicorp. Mr. Rao is also the past-Chairman of NASSCOM and is now on the Board of Trustees of the NASSCOM Foundation. Mr. Rao is also on the board of trustees of four other not-for-profit foundations: Development Gateway Foundation, India Foundation for the Arts, IIM Ahmedabad Alumni Trust and Sujaya Foundation.

Mr. Rao is an extremely innovative and well-respected leader, with years of experience in the corporate and social sectors. We are delighted to have him with us in October.

Leadership Forum: 3 Oct. 2009

Read Full Post »

What Get Said to Give and What Give Taught Get

So Get said to Give

In order to live

Just take what you can

Be rich, dearest man.

Learn to grab and to claw

Always want more, more, more

And don’t stop to think

What your wanting is for.

Be rich man

Be cool

Send your kid to a school

Where he’ll grow up to be

A rich Get just like me

Then Give interrupted

Get stop! Get please stop!

All this talk of just making

It up to the top

Makes me giddy and dizzy

And fizzy and sick

You’re up to no good Get

I know all your tricks

You’re making these people

Think love can be bought

That happiness tickets

With money are brought

I know your type Get

I used to be you

Till I stumbled on giving

And what it can do

And that is the thing

I must share here with you

I used to feel good, Get

Just giving away

Some old clothes, the torn ones

The jeans that were frayed

Then one day, a child said

He dreamed he could play

With a new toy, a new toy

Not my give-away

So I went out and bought, Get

A shirt that was cool

Thinking about

What he’d wear after school

And a toy car, I bought him

Of shiny, bright blue

I thought of what six year old

Boys like to do

And the smile that he gave, Get

That smile it was real

So real that my heart

Didn’t know how to feel

And the next day, while walking

I saw a small child

She asked for some money

Her hair was quite wild

And when I said no

She pointed afar

To a coconut vendor

Behind all the cars

I followed her, zig-zag

‘Cross Mumbai’s loud street

We sat down with coconuts

On dusty, tar seats

Just me and the ‘lil girl

Sip-sipping away

A sliver of joy

Had slipped in my day

And as we were chatting

About things that she chose

A man not too far

Watched, then quietly rose

And then, came towards us

And – almost ashamed

Gave a bright, shiny apple

Then left as he came

And you see, Get

You see, Get

When you start to give

You pave roads for the Others

To change how they live

When you first start to look, Get

It maybe a haze

But many are giving

You will be amazed

The tree, how it gives

Of its fruit and its shade

The carpenter gives

Of the wood that he’s made

The teacher, she gives

Every student her right

The puppy he fills

Every heart with delight

The farmer he gives

Of his hard-earned new crop

The sun gives us light

Til the moon says to stop

The temple and mosque

Really say we are one

The swing takes us high

Up-and- down kind of fun

And music, she gives us

A world that is free

And dreams, how they teach us

Just what we can be

So I watched, Get, I watched

And I learned how to give

How to always have hope

How to love and forgive

To compare myself down

To feel thanks, to want less

Get, I learned to share more

Get, I learned to feel blessed

Shaheen Mistri

CEO, TFI

Read Full Post »

Changing Lives

Occasion: TFI seminar at  Ness Wadia College of Commerce and after that, what one of the listener responded back…

I’d like to thank you once again for the nice and encouraging speech today in the seminar room of Ness Wadia College of Commerce. I’d also like to share my ideas regarding TFI with you.

I’m Deepan Kumar Das, a final year student pursuing BBA (Finance) and a national from Bangladesh, another country shattered with many problems among which lack of proper and scientific education is a very serious one. I was awarded a scholarship from the Govt. of India to pursue BBA from university of Pune and that’s how I’m here today in India.

I think I’ve changed the way I used to look at my life and my aims and objectives after listening to you today. I’ve already started to cultivate many new ideas and ambitions on my mind which I’m about to share with you. I don’t know how strong I sound when I say that I would love to carry out this fellowship but I really mean it and I’m highly encouraged, enthusiastic and determined about it.

I’ve always wanted to do something for the people and society of my country, to give something in return for whatever I have achieved from my country. But may be sometimes because of indifference and lack of seriousness or a fruitful way of doing it I couldn’t get myself involved in such activities. But you certainly showed me the way today. The ambition which I’ve already fostered, I know, is too high but I really don’t care about the height now. I’m aspirant for carrying this forward to my own country and lead the TFB (Teach For Bangladesh) which will be much more challenging I believe. Bangladesh has many brilliant, dedicated and motivated youngs scattered all over the world and I dream of uniting all of them and lead them to the dedication towards the TFB.

So TFI is my workshop wherein I’ll acquire valuable knowledge and experience and implement all of those in my country later on. And that’s why I’m eagerly looking forward to have this chance to join TFI and dedicate myself there. I’ve started filling up the form and waiting for the confirmation of forwarding the recommendation letters from my two professors.

By the way, I am also staying at Koregaon Park since it’s been the hub of foreigners in Pune. May be some day I’d meet you and listen to your story of achievements, the story of a Harvard graduate which I feel would make me more enlightened and encouraged.

Thank you very much.

Best regards,

Deepan Kumar Das.

Read Full Post »

Mtv Wassup …link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oa_6Bwlvu0 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oa_6Bwlvu0>

Hi,

Here is the link for our show on Mtv….. watch it

Read Full Post »

Reflection

“In my student’s eyes, I see visions of my childhood.

The games that were once played,

The friendships that I once made.

 

The epitome of innocence

A perfect raindrop in a storm

They are my rainbow.

 

A blessing in disguise

I watch those gleaming eyes

So meticulous, so intense

Little eyes so full of chance.

Adamant, but ever loved

Precious gifts from up above.

 

Ever learning minds expand

As they grasp onto your hand

Want to see all that life has

Make me want to be a better man than

I ever have.

 

I learn and I grow

As slowly I watch the show

The purpose of my life, I feel has been found

And no more do I have to go round and round.

 

Those little eyes, will be my guiding light

For as long as I am alive, for their cause I will fight!!!”

 

–          Aniket Bhaiya

 Aniket Thukral is a Commerce Graduate from Hansraj College, New Delhi. He was working with Ernst & Young before applying for Teach For India Fellowship and getting selected.

Read Full Post »

Pushing the Press

By Rakesh Mani

PERHAPS the root cause of the decline and subordination of the Orient can be traced back to the 1450s when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press. In those days, the Ottoman and Mughal Empires enjoyed unmatched wealth and power and their monarchs ruled over pretty much half the world.

Curiously, however, they never imported the printing press to produce and distribute bulletins of the state, religious texts, literature and poetry.

In Europe, on the other hand, the printing press was adopted almost instantly by educational institutions and indeed, the Church – and so Western ideas were more broadly disseminated. Soon enough, as one thing led to another, people read, were educated, trained to think and spurred into action which resulted in many movements and eventually, the Industrial Revolution.

The tragedy of the East was that we were afraid of change. The printing press was never brought in because it was thought we had a better system with mukhatibs and their art of calligraphy. And surely, the political pressure exerted by these influential men of letters in the courts and durbars of yore had a role to play as well.

It was partly a question of receding power and also partly, a fundamental fear of change. But even until now, we haven’t yet learned this lesson. And yes, not much has changed.

Speaking to a middle-aged Pakistani industrialist in Abu Dhabi a few years ago, I expressed my frustration that the Pakistani government had not done enough to liberalize the economy and be more engaging of India. I was thinking of businesses without borders, universities with satellite campuses and routine literary festivals.

The man replied sharply, “Allowing the level of co-operation you are talking about will make us an extension of India, they will take over Pakistan.”

Sixty years on, the fear that India will seek to take over Pakistan at every opportunity and revert to pre-Partition borders still exists. In India, on the other hand, the fear is that extending cooperation will embolden Pakistan, which will exert its influence to covertly foster discontent in the Indian Union, end the economic party and try to break the country.

Why? Because when thinking of Partition, it is only the Pakistanis who feel they gained a country. Most Indians still feel that they lost a third of theirs.

Nowhere is this mutual fear and distrust more palpable than in the media.

Most headlines and news articles in the mainstream Indian press paint a highly distorted view of Pakistan. It is a Pakistan of trigger-happy mullahs trying to come to power, and gain control of Pakistan’s seventy-odd N-bombs to use in their religious battles.

It is always the differences between the two countries that are focused on instead of the many similarities.

And Pakistan’s media too is guilty of demonizing India – especially in the vernacular Urdu language publications. You’d have to be nuts to print some of the garbage that passes for opinion journalism in some of these papers. And they trumpet that every atrocity in Pakistan has an Indian hand – the Lahore attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team being a case in point.

The only way for people to understand these similarities and to break down the mistrust that has been built over years of demonization is for India and Pakistan to make each other’s newspapers and news channels freely and widely available in their respective countries. This would do more for building understanding in the long-run than anything else and is something the foreign ministries of both countries should be working towards.

Media freedoms can take us a long way. And we need to get to the point where Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper is widely read in India and Pakistanis can easily switch to NDTV for their news broadcast. This cross-pollination will broaden minds to assimilate many-sided truths that we have thus far ignored.

India and Pakistan are more alike than the people of these countries believe, and more similar than the respective establishments will readily acknowledge. The hackneyed plot that casts India as an incredibly wealthy power and Pakistan as its struggling sibling is a blatant half-truth.

Both countries have been repeatedly ravaged by apocalyptic outfits. Both have serious problems with education and have dramatically failed their poor and disenfranchised segments.

But like most problems in the world today – global warming, the economy, trade – the Subcontinent’s battles against extremism and educational inequity are pan-national. Poverty, suffering and rampant extremism tie India and Pakistan together. But India cannot prosper while Pakistan crumbles, and Pakistan cannot progress if it blocks India’s rise.

Our shared problems and solutions stretch across our borders – as do our markets, languages, history, literature and poetry. We may be separate nations, but our people share the same dreams. Like it or not, we’re all in this together.

We can’t be afraid of changing the mindsets and functioning of staid, old bureaucracies. The sooner we start thinking of working together, like Europe, towards common goals and progress by pooling our energies and resources, the better we’ll all be for it.

Published in Dawn Newspaper (Pakistan) – 9th September, 2009
Rakesh Mani is a 2009 Teach For India fellow working in Mumbai. Prior to joining Teach For India, he worked in the fixed income practice at JPMorgan in New York. Heholds a BS degree in Actuarial Science & Finance from New York University.

Read Full Post »