Blog
“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.”
– Henry Ford (founder of Ford)
We at Catalysts for Social Action strongly believe in working together and creating a strong network of trust and reliability. It is also reflected in one of our core values, ‘We Care’, that we ensure every young adult who leaves a child care institution at turning 18 and enters our Aftercare and Livelihood programme stays connected with us.
We therefore started organising quarterly meets for our care leavers who have become part of our ever-growing Aftercare Alumni network. The concept is to promote a sense of togetherness among the youth and build a strong support system where all the members, new and old, can offer assistance, share personal and professional resources, and be there for each other through thick and thin.
The following are highlights of Aftercare Alumni network meetings held in different locations over the last quarter.
In Goa, we organised an engaging session on “Relationship Management” for 22 of our Aftercare Alumni. The interactive and activity-based session covered various topics: understanding the difference between personal and professional relationships, the importance of having and maintaining boundaries, tips on setting healthy boundaries and limitations, overcoming loneliness and ways in which one can avoid being addicted to social media. Arafath Ahamed, a certified Neuro Linguistic Programming Master Practitioner, also made the young adults assess their interpersonal relationships to help them understand whether it is healthy or unhealthy.
More than 65 alumni attended the Mumbai, Thane and Palghar clusters meeting. It was a proud moment for us to see one of our care leavers, Aruna, who has joined CSA as a Programme Associate, take an informative session on the importance of medical insurance and why we should all be insured. The young adults also benefited from our discussion on various government health schemes. The highlight of the evening was a performance by two alumni boys who composed a rap song about CSA’s work and the impact it has had on their lives. They gave a live performance filled with enthusiasm, which was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience. We also announced a “Reel-Making Contest” for our alumni to participate and make short videos on social media. They will be judged by our jury and the top three winners will be awarded at the next meeting.
The Madhya Pradesh Alumni chapter took a step further in the positive direction as we discussed creating an Emergency Fund. This Fund is meant for the care leavers, which will be managed by them and will comprise of their contributions. The need for this arose, as we realised in recent times that there were various cases wherein our young adults encountered different emergencies and needed to arrange money at short notice. The young minds along with our experienced team will mull over it and take this germ of an idea forward in the coming meetings. In the Indore and Jabalpur clusters, over 50 alumni members participated in a question answer session to find out about skills required to grow and perform better in their current jobs and excel in their field.
In Pune, Wagholi and Pimpri-Chinchwad clusters, 49 enthusiastic alumni gathered for an enriching meeting. They discussed different career paths and emphasised the importance of saving money. They took the initiative to plan future activities like tree plantations and to improve skills like personal development. To everyone’s delight, a Zumba session was conducted by one of our care leavers, Omkar Sarodo. The meeting fostered a sense of family and community, laying the groundwork for a self-reliant and active alumni network.
In Odisha’s Alumni meet we discussed several government schemes that could be advantageous for our young adults. A thorough orientation was given to 45 promising Alumni members on the process, eligibility criteria, and required documentation to avail the schemes. Subhanarayan Satpathy from the District Child Protection Unit of Puri was the facilitator of the online meeting.
We are committed to taking the Aftercare Alumni cluster meetings forward by staying connected with each other beyond our quarterly meets. We look forward to adding more young adults to our network.
