Indore: Aimed at bringing smiles and changes in the lives of underprivileged, a family group had seven years ago turned itself into a registered non-government organisation ‘Seva Sahyog’ to impart skills to slum children in more organised way. And, today the NGO has almost all the family members and friends working together in it towards making a happier society.
Introducing the organisation, founder Sushil Nigam said “I initially started with working for welfare and development of deprived street children. Later, the area or work expanded its reach to orphans, destitute women, elderly people and environmental awareness.”
“Though I had started this work about 30 years back, we realised the need of registering it as an NGO for better performance, only in 2010,” he added.
Recent activities
Since the inception seven years ago, we have been putting lots of effort towards uplift of the weak and underprivileged and also conserving environment. Last year we had organised several plantation campaigns as well as camps to impart skills to underprivileged and educate slum children. These apart, we also had projects supporting destitute elderly and differently abled people,” informed founder of the Seva Sahyog, Sushil Nigam.
Aimed at helping the poor become self-sustainable and stop resorting to beggary, the organisation taught handicrafts and making of paper bags, jewellery, and envelopes to over 800 slum dwellers in just 21 weeks under its ‘Impart Skills’ campaign. HR manager of the NGO, Hima Kulshetra, Deepti Meena, Radha Shrivastava and Swati Solanki were entrusted with imparting the training, which they did quite successfully.
The NGO through several of its ‘green’ campaigns held round the year, also have planted 500 saplings in the region to do their bit for nature conservation. “We have been a smile agent for elderly and differently abled children since our inception,” quipped the founder with deserved pride on his face.
MAJOR CAMPAIGNS
• SPREADING SMILES: The organisation often spends weekends, festivals and birthdays with differently abled people and elderly people at old age homes. Members of the NGO share jokes with them, listen to their stories, laugh, dance, sing and do various other fun activities to bring some happiness and smile to their otherwise lonely faces
• CYCLING AND GO GREEN: The NGO holds numerous cycling events to promote green practices and also, reforestation by planting trees across the region. Under its ongoing reforestation campaign, the members would take out a cycle tour and plant saplings at various places of the Vindhyachal Valley.
We are working on creating self-help groups (SHGs) in backward areas to address the disturbed economy among the population. We already have started our flagship campaign ‘Impart Skills’ in the selected areas to empower the underprivileged population with small scale manufacturing and business skills and thus, help them earn better livelihood and overcome various economic challenges. Interestingly, though we had started with an aim to just skill slum dwellers, today we have exceeded our target to even produce skilled teachers from them.
– Sushil Nigam
Founder, Seva Sahyog
