I will be hitting my 30th Birthday in 8 more days.
Not a big deal, except the fact that I don’t really understand or enjoy celebrations on the day, and hence have decided to move away from more such non-essential formalities as I take on the next years of my life. What I intend to replace them with is more conscious decision and action, to make more things happen, and to create meaningful impact for a few more individuals along the course of my journey.
Now it might sound all altruistic & shiny, but let me state it is hardly so given I am more or less ‘selfishly’ working majorly only with the organizations I advise (and/ or hold equity in) the rest of the year – By changing this, I hope to achieve a more focussed opportunity to use and leverage my skills and learnings with a few more genuine individuals and organizations who are really working on grass-root level social change.
This year, I have been invited by, & am partnering with, ‘Child Rights and You (CRY)’ ; to run 21.1 Kilometers in the Airtel Delhi Half Marathon (ADHM 2015) as a CARE Champion (Diamond) for them.
By doing so, I intend to raise INR 5 Lakh, or approximately, $7800 towards the immunization of 400 infants, 0 – 1 years of age.
FYI, I am a hard core foodie, have almost always been on the healthier side, and have not really been into training-till-I-cry-myself-to-sleep for a major part of my life (> 95% till now) : In short, I am not a regular runner, not an athlete, and this is definitely not amongst the easiest things I have done.
I realize that not only has this commitment helped me personally overcome my previously-set notions of my physical limits ; but the process can help CRY get 400 infants to the next level of survival. Here are a few not-so-fun facts:
- 0.7 Million infants die in the first 4 weeks after their birth
- 1 Million infants die before reaching their first birthday
- Only 44% of children 12 – 23 months are fully immunized against the 6 major preventable diseases
- 45.9% of children under 3 are underweight
- 80% of children under the age of 3 have anaemia
For the campaign undertaken, you can add power to the efforts underway to change all this, for as low as INR 100 (less than $2).
If we work together, we can make the statistics change for the better. My hope is, together we will.
A huge shoutout to all the brilliant leaders who are partnering for the initiative:
- Ishita Anand, Founder & CEO, BitGiving, who was the first to confirm the partnership, at a very special consideration to CRY to help create more impact. Also, a huge shoutout to Ela Gupta and Prarthana Gupta, core BitGiving team, who have been working hard on this. Click here for BitGiving’s most recent win, supporting FRIENDICOES.
- CRY is hosting a Fundraiser Influencer Evening with Power Influencers & CRY patrons, on the evening of 20th November 2015 (6 PM IST – 9 PM IST) in New Delhi, India. (Check rewards section in campaign link above for details)
Those who have accepted to be part of the Influencers Panel include Ajay Chaturvedi (Founder & Chairman, HarVa), Sairee Chahal (Founder & CEO, Sheroes), Shikha Uberoi (Co-Founder, Indi.com), Sunita Godara (yet to confirm – Sunita, who is a former Indian Marathon Champion would also be advising me on my marathon training, thanks to CRY)
- Ajay Chaturvedi, Founder & Chairman, HarVa has agreed to pitch in with his proceeds from his book ‘Turiya Tales : Lost Wisdom of the Swastika’ sales on Influencer evening towards the cause.
- Achyut Hatimuria & Joymalya Das are doing a Pictures Project capturing the experience of representing CRY at ADHM and training for my first ever Half Marathon attempt.
The pictures project will cover the experiences spread across 4 days including (a) Site visit to the Grassroot NGOs, (b) Marathon Training, (c) Influencer Evening, (d) Day of ADHM 2015.
- Tathagat Choudhry, Co Founder, FARO and Sathyan Selvam, CEO, FARO for partnering with Child Rights and You (CRY) for the initiative and pitching in for creating value for potential donors. (Check rewards section in campaign link above for details)
- Anita Sharad, Soha Moitra, Ashish Jacob, Neha Singh, Monika Walia, Shefali Tandon, Rohit who have been propelling this and other initiatives forward, at Child Rights and You (CRY).
#GetHealthyGiveHealthy
Note : For the incredible and kind individuals, who have been reaching me towards long term non-profit initiatives – I have already been invited by a genuine organization working on grass root level issues with the United Nations & some incredible world leaders, to work with them, plus represent them in the ADHM next year (now that I think of it, yep, more than a year in advance); and I have already confirmed the same with them. Best,
