Countdown to 400 – Birth of a Dream

Full2 Faltu will soon have 400th post. It has been a long journey and reaching 400 is a milestone in itself. I may not have a big fan base considering the fact that I am a lazy bum who takes almost no efforts to promote this site. But still some readers come again and again to read for reason best known to them. Some of the readers have inspired many post here. For more than 300 post, they have been reading what was written by me. Now its their turn to be in the driver seat. I had invited some guest writers to write for Full2 Faltu. I did not have a big list as I was looking for those readers who do not have a blog of their own. Sometimes even the readers want to say something. Some of the readers obliged, actually, I had to threaten them in different ways. Listing the first one in the series by Vijay

I don’t receive many comments so a request to all readers to comment and encourage the guest writers.

I have known Vijay for more than 2 years now just because I stay in his house in Amsterdam. Vijay works in the IT industry and has been staying in Netherlands for more than 12 years now. I have seen him take different roles of a father, a husband, a friend and now as a writer. Writing becomes easy when you talk about something you feel about. You become all the more passionate when writing about your dream. Today he talks about that dream.

Handing over the writer baton to Vijay. The post number 396.

The Birth of a Dream

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I was struggling to build the framework of the write up for the last couple of days and did not know where to start. It is a dream, it is a mission and I am sure you will agree it is sometime difficult to deploy words to explain your ‘Dream’.

Nevertheless, I got down to business and made a sincere effort to portray my ‘Dream’.

How it all started?

I am sure many of you if not all of you, have participated and or continue to participate in acts of generosity driven by one strong desire of sharing resources with others who are not as privileged as you are to help them, to bring a smile on their faces. Primarily, it is an attempt to ‘help someone in need’ and this could be financial, emotional and or other forms of support. And I am sure most of you (if not all) will agree, that the smile you are able to bring by helping someone in need is perhaps the most satisfying smile.

Like most of you, I have tried to render that help in many forms, so be it, providing education support, medical support, work related support etc or perhaps as basic as just buying grocery for a poor family. There is nothing special about it. Isn’t it? Most of us do it in one way or the other.

One fine day in 2004, I had some of Pranav’s (he is my son studying medicine at the University in Amsterdam) batchmates over for a cup of tea with us and the discussions took the route to ‘goed doel’ translated it means ‘good deeds’ or ‘noble cause’. What I heard was very encouraging and without getting into the details of the conversation here, I will like to summarize the key points:

1. All of them wanted to contribute a part of their free time and resources to provide free medical aid and medicines to poor
2. Constructive ideas were exchanged as to how we can influence and help people who do not have resources, poor people (I hate that term though)! Lets call them Financially handicapped
3. One could easily feel the strong desire in these bunch of young students to do something positive, constructive but stuck in the gambit of where and how to start?

So no rocket science here. These are the things that we talk about or hear every day – drinking water, tree conservation, vocational training, basic education, old age care etc

And believe me, discussions did not end there. In fact that was the beginning and PRAY was born to provide a platform to a team of young professionals to canalize the resources, thoughts, ideas, skills etc in a more organized manner to reach the under privileged people. The name PRAY – Project Relief & Aid by Youth signifies involvement and motivating youth in the development activities driven by the sole objective of ‘bringing smiles on the faces of people who are not as privileged as we are’ with the belief that ‘every morning brings new hope’.

So, now we had a platform, an organization, a mission and I fell asleep J

And guess what? I dreamt (like every other normal person). What I dreamt was a PRAY campus with a Primary School imparting free education; A basic medical centre providing much needed relief to the poor; an old age home with 20 or so inmates and a vocational training centre helping to build self – sufficient individuals. So this all started from here and in the year 2005, a trust in India named PRAY Trust was setup. This is registered in New Delhi, India. The objective was to have a local entity while working in the country. As a matter of principle and also to enable complete transparency of flow of support and aid, we have the policy of conceptualizing, scoping and implementing the development projects directly under our supervision. Wherever necessary, we seek support of local agencies – government and non-government.

The year 2006 evolved with framework to give shape to the dream. The project plan was drawn out and it is estimated to be fully functional in the 7 years time frame. The project will be rolled out in a phased manner.

We kicked off fund raising for the project during the Xmas time last year.

At this point of time, we are contemplating a pilot project on the following guidelines:

1. Phase 1 – Land acquisition
2. Phase 2 – provide free basic education up to class 6 for about 150 students including a free mid-day meal using modern pedagogy methods.
3. Phase 3 – provide free basic medical treatment by setting up a Medical centre. It will later evolve into a specialty treatment centre where we will be able to arrange the visit of experts for a week or more for rendering free advice and treatment within our means.
4. Phase 4 – an old age home to house 20-25 old & destitute and provide full care.
5. Phase 5 – a free vocational training centre to have a phased roll out of vocational course – Electrician, Computer Programming to name a few.

This project will be managed locally by PRAY Trust in India.

How can you help us in Phase 1?

In pursuance of our plans, we are raising funds for the Phase 1 – land acquisition. And in this context we are seeking out individuals and corporate to help us out.

We have received very encouraging support from some of the corporations like Peak IT, Stream International Europe BV to name a few. Discussions are underway with some other companies as well.

I am seeking your help and support for this noble cause. You can donate directly into our bank account with the ABN AMRO. We encourage you to complete the registration for support on our website, alternatively, please send an email to confirm so that we can track.

We will be happy to acknowledge your help and support via banner(s)/roll of honor on our website and also on the plaque to be erected at the site.

If you have any questions, please feel free to write to us on the following address:

PRAY Foundation

Eurokade 47, 1060 RZ

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Or email us at: info@prayfoundation.org

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