From educating over 500 children to creating chatbots for NGOs – the top Social Stories of the week
This week, SocialStory saw many inspiring stories of individuals, NGOs, and non-profits that aim to help others in distress.
Dev Prathap Singh, who worked as a ragpicker as a child, is now running ‘Voice of Slum’ — the NGO that educates and supports over 500 children.
Meanwhile, students of Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, came together to revive the dying Indian artforms. The New Delhi Social Workers Association has been actively working in the fields of health, education, sanitation, literacy, and women empowerment since 1948.
On the other hand, Bengaluru-based architect Neha Harish’s thesis ‘Requiem for Tolerance’ was awarded Best Sustainable Design at Nippon Paint’s Asia Young Designer Award among 13 finalists from across Asia.
Here are the top Social Stories of the week:
Meet the former ragpicker who is now educating over 500 children
Dev and Chandni
Dev Prathap Singh was born into a middle-class family in the Chambhal Sambhag area of Madhya Pradesh. His father worked in LIC of India, while his mother was a homemaker.
However, he was caught in a slew of social problems when he left home at the age of 12 – from working as a ragpicker to becoming a waiter in a restaurant.
Cut to 2016, Dev wanted to ensure that no other child undergoes the same plight as he did during his childhood. So he co-founded ‘Voice of Slum’ with Chandni Khan, an NGO now educating over 500 children. It also distributed over 20 lakh meals during the pandemic.
How a group of students in Delhi are reviving dying artforms in India
The core team with their mentor Giriraj Prasad
For some years, the demand for Indian arts and crafts has been on a decline. Due to the increasing adaption of modern art into home décor and diversification of interests, the demand for classic wood sculptures, terracotta products, the weaves and wickers, among others, has been impacted.
In an attempt to refresh the demand for Indian arts and handicrafts, a group of students at Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi, came together to start an initiative called Rivaayat on November 17, 2019.
The core team behind this initiative consists of Garv Vohra, Raya Dhawan, and Niladri Sekhar Mondal – who are the directors of Rivaayat.
This Delhi-based NGO is working for the needy since 1948
Dr Gaurav Grover, President, New Delhi Social Workers Association
The New Delhi Social Workers Association has been actively working in the fields of health, education, sanitation, literacy, and women empowerment since 1948. The 15-member core team has lawyers, doctors, and volunteers from all over Delhi-NCR who are passionate about social work.
Besides designing and executing projects and camps for the betterment of society, the group has undertaken various initiatives to build and encourage communal harmony and sensitise people about their basic fundamental rights.
Meet the Bengaluru architect who won a global award for her design highlighting the plight of refugees
Neha Harish
For Bengaluru-based architect Neha Harish, ‘placelessness’ was the theme for her thesis ‘Requiem for Tolerance’, which explores the architectural implications of forced migrations that lead to marginalisation and loss of identity.
Her project was awarded Best Sustainable Design at Nippon Paint’s Asia Young Designer Award among 13 finalists from across Asia.
The 24-year-old architect chose this theme when she noticed that many of her classmates at the RV College of Architecture — who had come to the city to study — returned to their hometowns to find inspiration to do their theses. With no immediate connection to her roots, she tells SocialStory that she wondered about others in a similar situation.
How this San Francisco-headquartered open-source platform is providing a chatbot to NGOs
Donald Lobo interacting with a group of NGOs
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many NGOs leveraged social media apps, like WhatsApp, to form groups for communication. However, there were limitations to these groups due to the limited participants.
To address these problems, San Francisco-based Glific — an open-source, two-way communication platform for NGOs — was created in 2019 to smoothly connect and communicate with their beneficiaries. The code for the platform can be downloaded for free.
Glific is developed under the Project Tech4Dev initiative of the Chintu Gudiya Foundation. In India, two Tech4Dev partners working on the platform as core teams — ColoredCow, Maverick Labs, along with a group of interns from UC Berkeley.
YourStory’s flagship startup-tech and leadership conference will return virtually for its 13th edition on October 25-30, 2021. Sign up for updates on TechSparks or to express your interest in partnerships and speaker opportunities here.
For more on TechSparks 2021, click here.
Applications are now open for Tech30 2021, a list of 30 most promising tech startups from India. Apply or nominate an early-stage startup to become a Tech30 2021 startup here.
Edited by Suman Singh