So it was summer 2012. My first year in my engineering course was over and I was home on a two month long vacation. Two months is a very long time and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do during my break. However, my father had told me about this internship programme at CRY that he had read about in the newspaper and I was looking forward to joining it. I had always wanted to do something like that, to be a part of a NGO and understand how they go about tackling all the societal issues. So on the morning of June 3, 2012 I headed for the CRY office in Saket, Delhi. They have their volunteers meeting on Sundays. And there began my journey with CRY. I took up their theatre workshop programme. My thoughts on the workshop were something like this: so they’ll give us all a script, make us recite the parts and then decide on the part we played best. But it was nothing like that. We were a group of thirty people. We came from all over the city and so mostly none of us knew each other. Our guide made us do all sorts of activities. We also discussed and shared our own experiences and opinions on child abuse, child labour, the RTE Act etc. It was through these activities and discussions that we got to know each other’s strengths and slowly a group of 30 strangers became a team. So within a span of six days we all became great friends and were able to prepare a beautiful script for our street play. We were all highly motivated, felt great pride in what we were doing and were all set to move the hearts of the people watching us; to make a difference in our own little way. Our first performance at the Indian Habitat Centre was a great success and there after we performed the play all over Delhi. Throughout this journey with CRY, the thing that fascinated me the most was the power that lies in human emotions. A little hope, a little encouragement, a smile, a shoulder to cry upon or some time to share; these “little” things have the power to change someone’s life; millions of lives. To be able to make or change someone else’s life is a great responsibility to take on; for making one’s own life isn’t any easy business either. But people have done this. They have fought for the rights of their fellow humans; some have even laid down their lives. But change has been brought about. CRY helped me to realise that however slow the process of change may be, if our efforts are honest the aim will be accomplished. Encouraged by my experience at CRY, I decided to start a small group in my college, with the help of CRY. So after getting a few friends as volunteers and all the permission work settled, the group began its journey. We often talked to children and their families around our college campus. We also went to a government school in a village, on the outskirts of our city. Believe me, the joy and contentment we felt after interacting with those children is something that is not easy to put into words. Every time that we visited them, on our way back, most of us had happy tears and in our minds millions of questions and thoughts. Thoughts like how we have had such a comfortable childhood and yet so much to complain about. And how these children have not had an easy life and the moment they see a little hope somewhere, they are thrilled. They are always eager to learn and grasp whatever life has to offer to them. And they are not just energetic but intelligent and quick at learning too. They are just as lovely as any child could be and yet life has not been as sweet for them as it has been for so many of us! Isn’t it ironical that we have so many opportunities and facilities and yet so much to complain about and these children have hardly any opportunities and they hardly complain? In fact, they try to make the most out of the opportunity at their hand. It was through interactions with these children that my friends and I got to learn so many things; looking at life from their eyes helped us broaden our perspective on life. They made us realise the value of a smile, of time, of the gifts life had given us, of the pampering we received from our family and most importantly of our responsibility towards society. I believe that there is no one else but us to blame for what these children have suffered and are continuing to suffer; each one of us in the society is equally responsible. Sadly though for various reasons our group has not really been able to help these children much besides listening to them, playing with them and putting a smile to their face. But what I know for sure is that in the near future, in our own little ways each one of us will surely do something about this. Well, I always knew that there is life beyond us and there are difficulties much greater than the ones we face. But through CRY I got to experience it. It has helped me add a new meaning and dimension to the way I looked at and understood life. And from what I have learnt I would like to share a thought with you: ‘Take a little time out of your busy schedules and add a new dimension to your life; there is much we can do to make this world a better place to be in for one and all’. I know you must have heard it often but it is true. We can make a difference. Think about it! Cheers to CRY and all the other NGOs and people who work for the society. Cheers to Sanya and Ramon! You guys made it all the more special in Delhi. Both of you are such amazing people and I am glad that we still keep in touch! Cheers to all my friends who volunteered to be a part of the college group.

Micromax has launched a twitter campaign for Christmas, wherein for each tweet on #CANGiftHappiness it would donate Re. 1/- to CRY. Within few hours of its launch, the campaign became one of the top topics on twitter in India. Requesting all readers to tweet on this # and help CRY in its social endeavour (get friends and family also to tweet!). All that you have to do is to log into your twitter account and post tweets with this tag. The message could be just about anything – something that makes you happy, something which you want to do to make others happy, something to do with child rights – anything and everything works! You can do a search on twitter with #CANGiftHappiness to see the kind of stuff people are posting – just in case you need any idea starters.

This event, is about bringing music lovers in Delhi together for a two day event when they can enjoy the music that they love and at the same time can do something to ensure lasting change for underprivileged children in India. This event will bring together rock groups from across the country and part proceeds from the sale of tickets will be given to CRY. This event will also see band members from multiple bands come together to create an “anthem for children”. Children from Music Basti will be sharing the stage along with these musicians to perform this anthem as a grand finale to this two day show.

1. Class 7 and class 8 students were gifted Anglo-Hindi dictionary and taught how to find meanings and use phonetics.
2. Class 5 and class 6 students were gifted Hindi to English translation book and taught some basic lessons of the translation.
3. Class 3 and class 4 students were gifted Activity Book containing lots of puzzles and were taught how to apply logic and reasoning to solve those puzzles.
4. Class 1 and class 2 students were gifted Drawing Book and crayons to make them learn about colors and objects, while having fun of coloring.
5. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught some tricks of Vedic Mathematics to expedite multiplication of numbers. They were also provided tutorials to practice the tricks further.
6. Class 7 and class 8 students were taught Origami and were provided bundles of Origami sheets to practice further at home.
7. Class 6 to class 8 students did theme based painting on Diwali.
8. Students of all classes were given Activity Sheets specific to respective classes. The activity sheets had best in class logical/analytical puzzles corresponding to mental level of respective classes. Students enjoyed working on the problems together, discussing them and establishing consensus on solutions.
9. While having refreshments, children enjoyed comedy and educational movies on big screen.
10. Children also showcased their talent of singing, dancing, etc by performing in front of class.

On 27th October 2013, CRY volunteers organised a Diya Painting Event at a government school in Sector-63, Noida. The event involved students of class 4 and class 5 and was focused on honing the creativity in children while having fun in painting Diyas. Divyanshu, a CRY volunteer who participated in the event, quoted “I had never thought before that Diya Painting can be so engaging, fun filled and fulfilling teamwork”. Children as well as volunteers enjoyed the event a lot and embarked the festive celebration of Diwali.

CRY Volunteers trained 150 children of a MCD school in Ali Gaon, Delhi, on Public Speaking for over 2 months. Eventually, 40 students were shortlisted to express their point of views on Child Rights during Video Shoot Round of the Speaker of the Year Competition (organized annually by Maverick Ventures) at the school.

Help child labors; don’t make them your helping hand! In spite of the rising literacy rate of our country we can see small children working in almost every part of our nation. Be it at a tea shop, a hawkers' spot, a dumping ground, a restaurant and even a hazardous place such as cracker factory, child labor is visible everywhere. The main reason for this is that Children are cheap labors. As a child is weak and can’t protest or stand up for himself/herself, one can extract more work out of them without paying them much. India has highest number of laborers in the world less than 14 yrs of age. There are about 60 million children working as labors. But these are just the known numbers. The real picture is even worse as most kids are “hidden workers” and there condition is not even known to the world. Total stats for child labour-12.6 million and around 0.12 million children work in hazardous job like cracker making, brick kilns etc. The government has set up Child labor act in 1986 and the Min age of employment set by govt of India is 14 yrs but this has not helped much in eliminating this problem. Sharing one of my encounters on this topic, there is a small teashop outside my company where a lady works. More than tea they mainly sell cigarettes, and other smoking stuff. I never paid attention to it until one day our senior took us there for a cup of tea. I saw the 5-6 yr old daughter of the lady standing with her. I thought maybe the lady doesn’t know about the free education scheme for children and thought of telling her about it. I asked the little girl’s name, trying to make a conversation. She was very shy and looked away. A group of men came there, brought cigarettes and started smoking. It was hard to stand there with so much smoke around me and I left for my office. While walking away I heard a senior manager (also smoking) asking for tea and then said he’ll only have it if the little girl makes it! Everyone agreed in unison and started motivating the girl to work. They had a pride in their voice like they are helping the girl by giving more preference to her work than other workers. Those were all educated professionals working at good positions. However, I believe they could have helped more had they motivated her to study Instead. A child trusts their elders and is completely dependent on them. Let us not break their faith and give them the care they deserve.