Ruta Satam, Author at GOQii

September 30, 2016 By Ruta Satam 1 Comment

Joy of giving

Have you ever realized how elated you get when you give? Giving is indeed one of the best investments an individual can make towards achieving genuine happiness. True giving comes from the heart, with no expectation of reciprocation. It is manifested with kindness and generosity and there is no substitute for this ‘Good Karma’. It just makes you feel good.

This month we celebrate the festival of giving also popularly known as the “Joy of Giving” festival. The festival begins on Oct 2^nd– the birthday of our father of our nation MK Gandhi and continues till the 8^thof October. Being the season of giving, I call upon one and all to share love and spread happiness in the lives of those who are far away from these pleasures. Let’s share our happiness with those lesser privileged people who ask nothing but love.

There are various ways in which you can participate in this festival. You can participate by sharing your Old clothes with people who require the most. GOQii has partnered with Ratna Nidhi Charitable Trust for this drive.

With this drive we would be helping RNCT to distribute usable garments to the poorest of the poor of all ages. To ensure that it reaches out to more and more needy people, RNCT will further distribute the collection to grass root organizations and institutions working with the underprivileged group of society across the country.

How do we participate in this drive?

-Communicate the ‘Joy of Giving’ message in your office, society, family and friends

-Inform us if you are interested to organize this collection drive in your office or society

-If you have a collection that weighs more than 20 kg, a pick-up will be organized for the donation material

-Your garments will then be sorted as per age and gender, repaired if required, ironed, folded and packed

-The sorted collection will be sent to orphanages, Old age homes, institutions working with street children or tribal or women’s help centres

Let the goodness begin 🙂

To know more about the drive mail us your queries at ruta@goqii.com

It’s not how much we give, but how much love we put in to giving ~ Mother Teresa

September 8, 2016 By Ruta Satam Leave a Comment

Supporting victims affected during Assam and Bihar floods

Oxfam India, part of a global movement of dedicated people working hard to fight poverty and injustice, has been relentlessly working towards bringing relief to those affected by floods in Assam and Bihar.

The rain gods haven’t been too kind to the people of two Indian states namely Assam and Bihar. Continuous heavy showers through the month of July, 2016 practically washed away the homes of many village folks, communication and transportation disrupted in most of the districts at present. Life is just about coming back for many in the remote districts of these two states. Most of the daily wage earners are still facing livelihood problems. Schools are still doubling up as relief camps in many of the affected districts

Oxfam’s team has provided urgent assistance with food for survivors to cope. The priority initially was to make available hygiene kits, shelter and non-food items like tarpaulins, blankets, ground sheets, specially designed Oxfam bucket that prevents contamination of water, mugs, mosquito nets and water purification tablets among other relief items.

Communities used their local country boats to move out of the villages. They were supported by community volunteers and Panchayat. State Disaster Response Force, Army and National Disaster Response Force were conducting rescue operations.

The Oxfam project called WaSH aims to reach 10,000 number of households or 60,000 number of persons with emergency shelter & Emergency food security interventions in worst affected districts of Assam and Bihar. Oxfam has already reached out to 2000 flood affected families.

Oxfam India is also the Karma partner of GOQii, the Health and Lifestyle Company. Your support can make sure more families receive lifesaving support. To know more about the cause https://www.oxfamindia.org/Assam-Floods-2016.

August 2, 2016 By Ruta Satam Leave a Comment

GOQii supports children affected during terror attacks through Ratnanidhi

Mumbai has seen some gruesome terrorist attacks in the past few years. As a result many families have lost their loved ones to these inhuman activities. Most children of these families have lost their financial support and were left with an unstable future. Given this background, the first thing that takes a back seat is always the child’s education.

Let me cite an example of one terror affected family……

“At a tender age of seven, Anjali lost her father during the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks. A garage worker by profession was shot in his head at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminal Railway Station. Fortunately his mother survived the attack but, was critically injured. Anjali’s younger sister Nikita was just two year old during that period. Her mother Savitri’s world came crashing down with the sudden loss of her husband leaving behind to single handed take on the responsibility of two young daughters and ailing mother in law.

Savitiri with a limited family saving couldn’t see a way to support her daughters education. Here is where an organisation called RatnaNidhi Charitable Trust (RNCT) stepped in as a saviour. She was provided scholarship for her two daughters through RNCT’s Education Sponsorship Program.

With the support of this program, Anjali has now reached to Class 9 and ranks second in her class. While her sister Nikita is happily studying in Class 4. Watching her two daughter study, Savitri was also motivated to continue her education. She has now completed her 10^th from a night school and works with the India Railway to support her family”.

RatnaNidhi Education sponsorship has been working in the field of education. This Program was commenced understanding the need to support children and families of terror attacks. Through this project, Ratnanidhi strives to break the barriers towards acquisition of education for the deprived and underprivileged section.

The Organization works hard to provide a fair chance to every child of this project, especially to the most deprived. There are more 60 children who are still in the process of completing their education and require guidance.

GOQii is currently supporting the cause through its Karma Platform and is looking for support from one and all. Walk, Run as much as you can and earn your karma points and donate them towards this wonderful initiative of educating those lesser privileged kids affected by the gruesome terror attacks.

To know more about the project visit http://www.ratnanidhi.org/Category/educational-sponsorships-for-terror-victims.

May 9, 2016 By Ruta Satam Leave a Comment

Help us create more Jyotis…

Bundelkhand is one among the most backward drought affected area in the state of Uttar Pradesh due to which seasonal migration is common from here. This in turn has led to children dropping out of school in this region.

In the patriarchal Bundelkhand society, it is preferred that girls are least educated as compared to boys. The region also has other challenges like child labour, migration, caste and gender based discrimination as far as girl child education is concerned. Infrastructural hindrance like non availability of female teacher and non-availability of functional girls’ toilets has also been forcing majority of the girls to drop out early from school.

If we want to remove discrimination from the society, first of all we have to educate the people, that enable them to understand their rights and various opportunities prevailing in the economic environment and different health related aspects.

For the past three years Oxfam and its partner organization has been working in Hamirpur district of Bundelkhand region. Efforts are focused towards establishing an improved quality of education in schools.

‘Child Collective’ is an initiative that has been started here in this region where the children of child collective are tracking all those children who have dropped out, counselling their parents with the help of School Management Committees & teachers and bringing them back into school. In the class room, they are helping out of school children to attain age and grade appropriate learning level.

Children of child collectiveare taking up issues to teachers and parents wherein teachers acts as facilitators and involve children in activity based learning.On the other hand parents prepare school development plan which supports teachers by facilitating child learning with locally available teaching and learning material. This process helps the teachers to track the implementation of Right to Education act, raise issues at Panchayat, district and state level and conduct social audit for greater transparency.

Ten strong child collectives have been developed with girls’ leading the collective. A perfect example of this project is child collective of Primary School Bada Lewaled by 11 year old Dalit girl Jyoti. She has been able to increase enrollment and improve the condition of her school through her leadership. With the collaborative effort of Parents, children and teachers, two schools have become fully ‘Right to Education’ compliant.

NGO based in Hamirpur has collectivised civil society organizations of seven Bundelkhand districts under collective forum of ‘Bundelkhand Shiksha Ka Adhikar’forum to strengthen Right to Education grievance redressal system. Oxfam and its partner has also contributed to the development of School management committee and teachers training module, school development program(SDP) format and RTE state rules in UP.

Jyoti is the beacon of education in her village. But, lakhs of children in India are yet to enter a school. Help us create more Jyotis’ to brighten the future of India

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