Five friends & 40 kids

When most village youths are running towards urban India, Jitesh is an inspiration

Anshika Ajmera



a_anshika@dnaindia.net
He came to Jaipur with a mission to do MBA. But it was while he was pursuing his BBA (second year) from Commerce College, that he realised his real aim of opening a Youth Research Centre (YRC) and doing something for the betterment of his village Ratanpura in Sikar and thereby develop the nearby ones too.
"My idea was that if you want to go into the corporate sector, you have to develop your skills practically," says Jitesh Kumar, who is 20 years old.
His drive to do something for his village started taking a real turn when he came in touch with the NGO, Pravah Jaipur. And it was with them that Jitesh and five friends went to his village on October 12 and organised a two-day workshop. The schedule covered a comic workshop conducted in a public school with 40 students from class 9-12, a survey on village issues and shramdaan with the kids.
But that was not all! With his friend's idea, Shubham, a tree plantation programme was also launched in collaboration with the school. "We initially faced a lot of opposition, but then we managed to convince the students after we promised them prizes," says Kumar.
"The villagers said we are doing all this for money. It was shocking for me to hear this from my own people," Shubham adds.
Now within these two days, this vigilant group has also cleaned up two streets of the village along with making earthen drains. "We collected Rs10 from each house on the street to make the drains," says Kumar.
The various activities Kumar and his friends did in the village were presented to other volunteers and representatives from Sir Ratan Tata Trust on Saturday evening at Pravah.
And, trust us, looking at him, there is only one saying that come our mind—big things come in small packages.


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Posted in: on Thursday, October 29, 2009 at at 5:42 PM