The journey on that day(June 8th 2008) started as early as 6 o clock in the morning… It was a great feeling to be in a place where everyone around you has the similar thought. No wonder everyone became close to each other instantaneously; thanks to our Vijay with his games in the bus.
We all had a nice breakfast in the village sarpanch’s house. We then reached the location of the eye camp by 9. There we faced a crunch situation as the doctors were late but a big crowd had gathered. Everyone did their best in disaster management to maintain calm within the crowd.
We started off the camp without doctors still not arriving, with the speech by the village head. Again our Vijay coming to the rescue in buying us some more time, who spoke interestingly for longer than we all expected with his mind boggling speech on how eye is important in a man’s life and how well we have to maintain it.
In the mean time, Varsha was tracking down the doctors. Raju and Mahesh started giving the tokens to the people there. Koushalya engaged the people there with her eye exercises.
Finally, Shankar guided the doctors to the eye camp location. It was only after the doctors arrived, we all got a sense of relief. Senthil, Pradeep and Kalidas brought breakfast to the doctors.
The eye testing and consultation began finally. It was a big crowd of nearly 163 villagers who got their eyes tested on that day.
Karthikeyan, Mahesh, Shankar, Senthil and Pradeep did their best to control the crowd and send one by one for testing and made the process smooth. While Koushalya took the registration desk. Rakesh Joshua and Rajath took control of the food court. They supplied food packets to the villagers who came all their way to get their eyes tested.
Thirukkumaran, Varsha, her brother, sister (Neha) and aunt explained the process of getting the spectacles and about the operation process they might undergo to the villagers who were mostly old people, calmly, after their eye testing.
Finally the eye camp ended well. In total, out of 163 people, 105 were identified to use spectacles and 32 were identified to undergo operation.
We all returned back with a sense of delight that we have done something good to enrich the lives of the people in need, with all the support from people who we know and don’t know.
All the spectacles were issued on the next weekend of the eye camp to the corresponding people. Thanks to the village sarpanch who arranged to do so.
On the same weekend, Varsha, Karthikeyan and Shankar collected all the people who were identified to undergo the eye operation and brought them to Chennai. Here, they were treated well and were operated. They were then, sent back to the village together with all the medications they need.
It was our first step towards a long journey which we accomplished gracefully overcoming many glitches.
Thanks a ton to all the good hearts who stood beside us and supported us to reach here!!!
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the write-up Shankar. Kaveripaakkam Eye camp event gave such a high satisfaction to myself.. As the post describes, a sense of delight surged among each of us when we came back after helping the village people...
ReplyDeleteThe day was a spectacular experience, instantaneously mingling with new friends..Some of the sweet memories that are still fresh in my mind are : Paattima's ages - each of them was telling he age as below 30 when she would definitely be above 50 at least., Volleyball with the local boys - Kalidas's serves were amazing :) , Neha's struggle to express 'Kurudipunal' during our dumbc game, and above all Koushalya's lost mobile - she was so afraid of her then would-be, now her hubby :)
Overall, it was a good organization. A pat on our backs for making our first event as a successful one. Special appreciation to those who spent time on weekdays too for guiding the village people for the surgeries.
Though we have now streamlined the actions of Shubodaya, we could still participate in such events as volunteers in others' camps whenever possible.. what you say guyz...?
Eye camp at Kaveripakkam, is really an unforgettable and cherishing trip that we had, lots of fun, lots of services, lots of love, lots of accolades and lots of happiness. What a day it was. Senthil as you said, fun which started with Neha's dumb-see in bus during our travel till the loss of Kousalya's cell phone seems unforgettable. Below is my big story saying why Shubodaya is special to me and what difference this eye camp as created in me?
ReplyDeleteDuring college days I was doing service to few children’s who where affected by 26th December 2004 Tsunami attack, When Tsunami hit Chennai, there where many children’s who lost there parents and few loosing there whole family. Many NGO’s helped the affected people in many ways they where able to do, I too accompanied with my dad one day who was a member of “Art of Living”. Been there doing service for 1 week, one day a boy from that group hold my hand very tightly and asked ”when will you leave us” has I was finding many NGO’s who where doing helps slowly started to get there feet back when days go on. It was that boy who said
“We are absolute orphans now, our family work was fishing and as my parents wants me to study well, and they did not involve me in this work and made me to study till 11th. Now they are no more and I neither have a complete education nor I don’t know our family work of fishing. What will I do? Say me some thing before you guys leave this place”
Above words disturbed me so much, and I was really restless that whole day, I wanted to put my burden down and hence discussed with one of my friend Nithya indirectly regarding this. It was she who told, it is nothing other than education is going to help them at that point. As she said, Education was the one which I can give at free of cost at that time. I just decided to teach 5 selected students who are really interested to improve there life by means of education. Being there in Marina for few weeks with those guys made me to identify those 5 talented chaps. It was 26th Jan 2005 I started my first lesson to them and continued teaching till march 2006 when guys wrote there 12th STD public exam. The results where out in few days, and all 5 folks have got a very good score in Exam. As I did my final Engineering project in sponsor with a well known hospital, I utilized all my project money to there counseling and stuff.
Out of 5, 2 got seat in BITS – Pilani reserved quota and 2 got seat in Adayar Polytechnic and 1 joined ITI in Murugappa polytechnic, chennai . In my last meet with them I just advised, Govt is there to help them further has they all come under a special quota and it is there duty to utilize that well and settle in life, I also requested them to inculcate this education to other poor children’s in future. All there eyes where filled with buckets of water. And it was the same day I left to Mysore for my Job training. The satisfaction I had that day was enormous which I cant express in words. But from then on almost 2 years I did not get involved in any service activity and was thinking that I am becoming a normal human being.
And now the day when Shankar took me to kaveripakkam, I went into my nostalgia and it gave me the happiness of my past, my involvement in eye camp was very meager, It was the day I was totally dumb struck by the way our young people are ready to do service for the society. It was that moment I felt bad about my self of not sharing my activity during college days to my friends, thinking they will make fun of me or report me to my parents.
May be if I would have shared, there would have been a very good support from you guys and we would have done a great difference by this time to the society. I felt really sorry that day being introvert and it was the same day I made myself ready to pledge my self to Shubodaya for what ever initiative it takes.
I wish Shubodaya a huge success in near future and I will contribute my 100 % in making this Shubodaya to reach the pinnacle of success. Thanks to Shankar and Varsha who made this Eye camp a huge success.
@Pradeep : Yes Pradeep.. when you first said about your contribution to those students, I had mixed feelings - happy to have a friend like you and furious that you shared only at a final point of that service.. we would have helped you in some means.. Its nice that you realized that very soon.. But you have done a great job da.. you have created a path for each of those students. Its a service that cannot be done by all.. Hearty Congrats for that :)
ReplyDeleteWe will create more such paths through Shubodaya.
Yes senthil, you are correct... even to me he did not say directly... he just discussed indirectly... and I did not understand what he was trying to say....
ReplyDeletewhen I was at school... I engaged in lot of service activities... our school used have a service kind of group... but in college nothing...
only once we collected some money and got medicines and food for kids in thoriapakkam....
pradeep could have told us earlier... we all would have actively participated...
As mentioned... If he could have told that he is utilizing the project money for kids... I would have got some more if needed and we could teached some more kids too....
anyways you know about chinnu... he hides lot of stuff... atlast he puts a big bang... thats fine... now our concentration should be in subhodaya and we should do what we can to make it a huge success for the welfare of our society...
Thats right Nithya... Past is past... I think now we are in the right path... We will now strive to do our bit to the society with dedication, love and care...
ReplyDelete