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Nilesh's Inspiration Story
Nilesh Kikle, project coordinator shares his own experience at Sumati Balwan and tells us what motivated him to take up this project.
Why should I donate my hard earned money to Sumati Balwan? Is this just one more orphanage? Are the funds beings properly used for the benefit of the children? These are just a few of the many questions that might irk your mind. Let me help you find the answer if not answer the questions by sharing my personal experience with Sumati Balwan.
In the year 2008, I made a trip to India and visited my town. A friend of mine; Hemant Botre, happens to work as a volunteer for Sumati Balwan orphanage. He mentioned to me that he visits Sumati Balwan two to three times in a year and spends quality time with the children. He has sponsored several small projects for the orphanage. He asked me if I would like to visit the orphanage. My initial reaction was skeptical, and the exact same questions posed above were running through my mind. I directly asked him if he knows for sure that the funds donated were really being used for the children’s benefits. He invited me to visit the orphanage and make an informed decision. My cousin sister Yamini and I accompanied Hemant to visit the orphanage.
Before visiting the site, we met Dr. Sharayu Ghole a Gynecologist by profession and President of Sumati Balwan orphanage. We had to wait for over an hour since she was in the middle of a delivery. Dr Ghole provided us with lot of information. Information regarding the mission, vision and the goals of Sumati Balwan. Throughout the conversation I felt that whatever Dr. Sharayu is doing is genuine and realized that she is doing this without any expectations in return. I was very impressed with her work for the orphanage. I immediately decided to make a charity for the orphanage. I opened my wallet and started digging out money to donate. Then something happened that I did not expect at all. Dr. Sharayu Ghole kindly rejected my charity. She asked me to stop and said “Nilesh, I am sorry that I can not take your donation this way. I would like you to first visit the site and then think about the donation.”. I realized I was taking a short cut by donating without visting a site. My reaction was impulsive. A reaction welcome by people who are doing this as a job. Dr Ghole and her charitable organization is different. She does that out of sheer compassion and whole heartedness. Charity is not just about money, it’s about time, passion and a feeling deep inside to work for a good cause. My journey had just begun.
We started off to visit Sumati Balwan at Nimbalkarwadi, a beautiful village located in Katraj valley near Pune (India). As we drove past the outskirts of Pune we entered a rural area where one could notice untidy, unstructured roads, difficult to even walk. We had to park our car in the middle of nowhere, as you could only walk to the site. We climbed atop a small hill to finally reach our destination; Sumati Balwan orphanage site.
We met all the children at the site. There were children of all ages, from four to about fifteen. Each one had their own story of how they landed there. After initial introduction, I realized that the children were curious to know more about us. During the conversation we talked about technology, my field of work. Some of the grown up kids showed lot of interest. A small quiz session proved that these children were bright, but needed guidance to secure proper educational resources. My heart empathized for these kids. These children need help and there is no reason why they should be deprived of getting education and other very basic resources. How could be a four year old girl Kajal, be at fault for being in this unfortunate situation? I realized that I did not make any mistake by coming here. Initially, we planned to be there for a couple of hours but such was the depth of my involvement that I had already spent more than four hours. I still did not feel like leaving that place. I spent quality time and the experience to interact with the kids was great. We bid goodbye and headed for the city.
On our way back, all of us were speechless. We were just looking at each other. I thought to myself that by God's grace we have all the resources - time, money and educational qualification. Along with using them for ourselves we can definitely share some percentage of that for this orphanage. This shall provide the initial impetus that these children require to commence the journey of life. I personally realized that philanthropy was more than just donating money. I need to give back to the world the appropriate amount of what the world has given me. That includes education, time, knowledge money, love etc. Hemant, Yamini and I unanimously decided to put our heart and soul in this effort. We went back to Dr. Sharayu Ghole and expressed our desire to work more actively with Sumati Balwan. She welcomed us with great pleasure and all of us became part of Sumati Balwan orphanage. I promised Dr. Ghole that I would definitely try to seek some help from United States of America, where I live to sponsor projects for Sumati Balwan.
My visit to Sumati Balwan was an eye opener and totally changed my perspective of donating money for social work. Later on when I came back to USA, I contacted Sandeep Kolte, who is a founding member of Beyond Intent. He was kind enough to listen to my experience and offered immediate help to launch a project to build much needed class rooms at Sumati Balwan orphanage. That is how “Path to Bright Future” project for Sumati Balwan was born. Other founding members from BeyondIntent like Kedar Datar, Piyush Gupta, Satya Ranganathan also jumped on to the idea and helped wholeheartedly to launch this project. Everyone contributed creative ideas to the project and finally the project is launched.This is a project that is designed with the current needs of the orphanage in mind and intention to go beyond making mere monetary contributions. Our intention is to make a profound difference in the lives of children at Sumati Balwan. We really need and appreciate your help for this worthy cause.
Nimbalkarwadi Village, Katraj Valley |
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Children at Sumati Balwan |
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