SHEETIKA PUNJ
When she started with Sachetan, she had a clouded vision about her future in social work as a career option, but a subtle transformation could be seen in her as she started performing tasks given to her. “It wasn’t only about putting an effort but I also started maintaining a productive direction in the kind of work I did.” She has done her bachelors in Computer Application and now wants to pursue her masters in Social Work.
It was Diwali of 2016 when she started as a volunteer for Sachetan. She offered her assistance to beautify the simple products of empty wine bottles as Sachetan believes in using waste till its last bit. She has been working for eight months with Sachetan now and looks forward to any volunteering work at hand. The art lab conducted for the CSR activities of the Adani group saw a distinctive contribution from Sheetika. She has also used the depth of her understanding and knowledge about the different aspects of the society in studying and forming case studies about the girls at Narishala, which is coming up as a unique venture from Sachetan in form of a descriptive booklet.
She mentions how working for Sachetan has increased her skill development manifolds and how the creative indulgence into the tiniest of things can turn the thought process into a creative channelization. What is required to have the understanding to provide the right thing to the right person at a particular situation is something working at stitching and sewing classes at craft centre established by Sachetan at Narishala has taught her. Patience, tolerance and handling a situation is a given must acquired skills for anyone working with Sachetan and Sheetika exceedingly tries to incorporate the same in her personality.
NARBADA KACHAWA
A former ChildLine worker and a Hindi Literature graduate, Narbada is the senior most volunteer for Sachetan, working since 2013 to the present. She believes in discipline and a smile usually follows as she has a firm upper hand on teaching while learning, and has been involved in the product decoration and presentation at all the art labs for newspaper crafts, painting and other.
Most importantly, Narbada plays a role of an education facilitator for adolescent girls and has been a mentor under SELF project (a project for girls in need of care and protection) of Sachetan. Since beginning she has been associated with the literacy and educational activities of Sachetan for the Narishala girls. Without fail she has been facilitating girls to continue their studies through open school system under the guidance of Sachetan team.
She has learned a lot from Sachetan, as she mentions. The proper usage of waste plastic and paper, the discipline to practice art and to teach it to others and very importantly the psychology of a child and how it can be understood to create a productive output. She started to learn things on her own and developed the skill to teach the same to her students, more of friends as she likes to put it. Narbada accounts that the greatest learning has been to herself, and she humbly accepts and believes that, “It starts with us.”
PIYUSH AGRAWAL
Piyush is a commerce graduate and a young social worker teaches to the underprivileged kids of a slum area. He joined Sachetan in the year 2015, September and has been involved in about 24 Art labs and various workshops, in and outside Kota; related to paper craft, origami, plastic waste management to promote ‘Re-decorate the waste’ agenda of Sachetan among different groups of the society.
He has acquired the will to be thinking out of the box about plastic waste and developed an eye to see beyond the module to bring about a variety and creativity into the work that is done. He is innovative and has been looking forward to make it best for kids/students/youth and reach out to people to do things practically and analysing the problems in the procedure.
Piyush mentions that his “communication skills and public relation handling has gained proficiency after working with Sachetan” and is a lot more confident about his working and methods and wants to take this to a much further level in future. He is with Sachetan because “my creative passion matches with its approaches”.
AKSHAY JAIN
Akshay is a B. Com and a VFX/ Animation student and new to Sachetan. He came in contact with Sachetan when plastic waste based Artlab was organised in his institution. He connected through his creative skills. Being a brilliant paper artist, he was given a chance to anchor a distinctive workshop for the HIV-AIDS kids of a shelter home. Further, he assisted in several artlabs of Sachetan in different schools of the city.
Akshay is a diligent worker, and has a fine bonding capacity with kids and students. it is a task for him to simplify his steps of creating paper-art to get it down to a level that the learners can understand. He has been mastering his skill since past five years, and through practice he has managed to acquire the art to teach what he has learned, starting this teaching journey with Sachetan.
He has seen a change in his attitude from being a student to a teacher and although new to the organisation, he looks forward to be a part of all the successful artlabs to be conducted for children and other learners.