I’m Safvan Kudukkan, an 18 yo human, living for making others happy. I am perfectly imperfect. I just love to take care of others and hear their stories. Just completed my higher secondary education and thinking of how to be a human. You can find me alone at any peaceful places where I create my own space. I don't take care of my things, while I get tensed about others things. You can find me writing death notes and finding details of deaths as I just pin it everywhere.
VOLUNTEERING FOR ME
Simply I can define it as my life balancing system. Today,I am here only because of the volunteering projects or the number of communications I have made in this field. Being in a stage of mental illness for the past 7 years, I started to enjoy everything only before four years, at that was the point where I started volunteering. Till today, I found happiness by making others happy and that’s a kind of volunteering right.I believe that even hearing our friend is a type of volunteering.My passion
VOLUNTEERING JOURNEY
I have been from my childhood itself. I love to do something good for others even though I doesn’t care my things. My volunteering journey started from my early childhood itself while I am working with different organisations for the past 4 years. My inspiration to volunteer is the stories that I have heard about my grand father. He died many years before I had born. He was a person who struggled to reconstruct the nearby school which is now functioning as one of the best one. His stories inspired me to this field.
VOLUNTEERING STORY
My volunteering journey began from the childhood itself. It was like when my mother gave me 5 rupee coins and said to give it to the poor people standing outside the mosque. From there I studied the value of being kind. And then the journey moved to help others. Like pouring water for others in functions, pasting posters on walls about different awareness programs and so on. Literally my life of volunteering with organisations was started when I was studying in 7th standard. My first organisations were Samastha Kerala Sunni Students Federation & Sunni Students Federation. I worked with them for training the small children’s in art sector. I started coordinating the team from my 8th grade and still I am mentoring them. And also I had volunteered with the RFC team in my school. In the 2019 flood I volunteered with SSF on Vazhayur for rehabilitation of the people. And after I joined for my higher secondary education, I was selected as the volunteer leader of NSS where i worked with 100 volunteers for more than 250+ hours. It included both offline and online works in which rehabilitation of two family’s was accomplished. We set up a house for a family , we built walls for a nursery, made play grounds for a LP School, Made our campus plastic free and so on. We had planted 1000+ saplings which are still being followed up by the volunteers. Being a NSS leader, I developed different awareness campaigns and workshops for the volunteers and the nearby communities. We cleaned canals, drainage systems, kept waste bins and made people aware of the importance of waste management. It was my first step to the path of waste management. And then the whole world was locked by the pandemic. And it was the time for getting out of the circle. I joined The Gulmohar Foundation as a volunteer and the first project I involved was the plants for future project by TGF MALAPPURAM on the Environmental Day on 2020. We planted more than 50+ saplings on roadsides, houses and in schools too. From there I was stepping to different organisations, different projects, different communities, and to different people. I started to volunteer by travelling, created awareness campaigns, developed learning hub in tribal areas of Nilambur and Wayanad. Started to listen people with heart, shared opportunities with them, volunteered with 5000+ volunteers in different projects and started to coordinate different works of different organisations and now being a human, I am still studying how to make sustainable development and to implement responsible tourism effectively.
PROJECT The Library Project
ORGANISATION The Gulmohar Foundation
MISSION & VISION
The vision of the project is to empower the communities of rural India through education. The mission of the project is to develop learning hubs and cultural centres in rural areas and empowering them by providing introduction to different skills.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The Library Project aims in creating library’s and learning hubs for the people in rural areas of India for development of the society through education. Welcoming the children, youth and also the aged to the world of literature and also to the world that every human have to be explored. Creating a space for people in rural area’s to develop or study new skills and to outreach their culture, artworks, products and skills. It creates inclusive space for the community. The school walls were painted, created a proper door for the toilet and more over the main element, making people happy, making them laugh and making them relaxed. The Library Project is a combined element with community development projects like artist camps for the children, toilets for the required people and so on. The sustainability of the project is measured by the reviews from children and local people. We visits weekly or monthly and ensure that the books are being read. We combined with the tea shop and kept some books there as people were eager to read articles while having a cup of chai. In the first phase of The Library Project, we collected 3000+ Books and two shelf’s. Around 500+ volunteers joined their hands with us for the 116 days saga. We had 11 collaborateurs and 18 mentors connected the collaborators. There were NSS UNITS, organisations, Community clubs and so on. Each mentor assessed the works and the amount of books collected by each volunteers. We provided letter of gratitude to all the volunteers through the mentors. Each NSS UNITS had 100 volunteers each and we gave little tasks for them to collect books. We checked their area of interest and then gave a proper guideline according to their taste. More talkative people were used to collect books from different houses while some connected with their 4 friends and each raised ₹50. And finally with the collected amount, a shelf was bought. The volunteer coordination in the field and also in the program was a real task while when everyone united, everything was alright.
LENGTH OF SERVICE
The first phase of The Library Project was started on 1st November 2020 and ended on 14th of February 2021. Around 116 days was taken to complete the campaign and installation of the library, the art works in school walls, and a proper clean toilet. The hours volunteered by each volunteers are around 250-300 hours in that 116 days, while the project mentors worked for around 500-600 hours in that 116 days.
ROLE IN PROJECT
The role of project lead/coordinator was furnished by me. I used all my connections for the projects. I connected with my friends by inviting their organisations, NSS Units & youth clubs to collaborate in this project. I added the values of being grateful to the people who donated, keeping the trust that they have kept on us, we accepted everyone wholeheartedly, we shared the gratitude through letters, I used my complete friends circle for the outreach of the program.
The project helped me in many ways. It helped me to create a bond with the tribal leaders and also with the community. It increased my leadership skills, coordination power, problem solving , critical thinking and more over everything, how to manage everything. I got connected with forest officers, local government, police officers and also with more than 500+ volunteers virtually. I got opportunities to take sessions on volunteering and got spaces to share my experience.
IMPACT OF PROJECT
The children who comes to school has started to read small story books like balarama and digest. The slow pace learning of reading followed by them makes us happy a lot. And also the students has started to go to closed toilets. They started to maintain it neatly. The magazines in the tea shop has been read by most of the people who know to read. And they read it to people who don’t know to be read. People has started to accept the importance of clean and hygiene toilets, value of education and the humanitarian values. The future of the project is to organise a artist camp at the tribal colony. We are in the final stage to execute it. And also we are planning for a cultural event to exhibit their art works. And to built a toilet in that community itself. And further step is to expand the Library circle. To design innovative mode of library’s in different rural areas of India. Sharing knowledge and making others happy.
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
ACHIEVEMENTS
I was the nss leader of my school, didn’t went for much recognitions.
FUTURE PLANS
I would like to promote responsible tourism and also awareness on waste management. I would be happy if The Gulmohar Foundation and Institute Of Social Volunteering can give me mentoring for fulfilling the dream. And also I will require youth volunteers and that’s where I require TGF the most
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