Online Donation to Ramakrishna Mission

I wanted to donate something worthwhile for a long time and finally took the courage to go and do it in September last year. Before this I have been donating in small amounts but this was my first bigger donation. I am not posting this here for any ego satisfaction; I did not post about it on Facebook or anywhere so far and now I just felt this is worth sharing to encourage others and hence I am doing it. 

While donation I thought about which category to donate and finally chose "care of old and sick monks". Old age is most vulnerable period of life for most and if someone had chosen to become monk/sadhu, most likely he or she does not have access to funds and can't afford proper healthcare. This is why I chose this category. 

You can follow below process to donate:

Go to https://belurmath.org/ and choose "Donation" option on the right hand side Or Else, go directly to https://donations.belurmath.org/

You can choose "Donate to Ramakrishna Mission (Indian Donors) if you are an Indian donor. 

Minimum amount for donation is Rs 100.

It is a very simple process and you can use Credit Card / Debit Card / Net Banking in order to donate the amount.

You can choose from the following categories:

• Relief and Rehabilitation
• Tribal welfare
• Widows' welfare
• Scholarships to women students
• Rural development
• Rural development training
• Pallimangal (Integrated Rural Development)
• Gadadhar Abhyudaya Prakalpa (GAP) - Holistic Development of Children
• Monetary help to the poor and needy
• Monetary help to the poor for medical treatment
• Integrated development of backward class people
• Charitable dispensary
• Viveka Tirtha - Centre for Human Excellence and Social Sciences
• Swami Abhedananda Convention Centre
• Scholarships to poor and meritorious students
• Research work
• Scholarships to students for higher studies
• Care of old and sick monks
• General Fund
• Philanthropic and charitable activities

You can also to through FAQ page in case of any queries: 

https://belurmath.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/6000035173-how-do-i-donate-online-

While donating for social cause, it is still important to choose the right organization. For example, recently, Government of India had banned a number of NGOs and social organizations because they were doing all sorts of activities including religious conversions and funding social and political unrest in our country. This is why it is important to choose the right organization instead of donating to any random NGO based on advertisement. When in doubt, which organization can be better than the one established by Swami Vivekananda himself?

- Rahul Tiwary

Reaching out to Goonj

I had written before on my blog, about how I got an idea of making a social change by helping my colleagues in my office to donate old clothes and other items to the poor and needy (through an NGO). I started collecting material from colleagues about a month back. People used to call me up, used to bring old clothes and other materials in poly-bags and I would meet them to collect. At times they even dropped the materials at my home, when the material was heavy. I could meet them during lunch, or after the office hours before going home. The collection system worked very well but I had not imagined that it will gain so much popularity. Within a month I collected so much material that the space in my flat started looking stuffed. By that time I had also realized that Goonj’s warehouse (the NGO through which I had planned to help donate) was too far away in a very different portion of the city. Two colleagues had initially expressed interests to help me by carrying materials in their cars, but later on we were finding issues with their availability (also because the place to go was about 30km from our place). But at last, Supriti and her husband obliged me by giving a helping hand.

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So one Saturday, she and her husband came with their car and we went to the NGO’s warehouse. She had already collected a lot of material from her neighbors also, and together we had a huge amount – perhaps 200 kgs or so. Goonj’s warehouse was near Wagheshwari Temple, and even Chokhi Dhani was not far away. It was a pleasant drive to reach there. But more pleasant was what we saw after reaching there. It was their warehouse cum processing center. The center’s in-charge told us that if the donated clothes were in good shape they donated those to the poor as-it-is. But in case of torn clothes (especially cotton or denim), they make a lot of useful items like bags, wallets, etc from the clothes. Even a cotton thread doesn’t go waste if they collect it, as we saw that they were creating very good doormats from those waste clothes. We also saw the bags and wallets they had made and everything looked very new and fresh. We saw about 20 rural women working there in their center. We came to know that at times they also ran campaigns or stalls and sell the items made by the women. The money goes back to the poor, and the women are also employed in a way. I found their model very innovative and worth emulating by others. The person from the NGO gave me a receipt, which was actually printed on one side of a used-paper. Great to know that they actually practice what they preach.

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<< I have pictures of the bags they had prepared. I would load those here in some time. >> You can also check a similar observation here [Link] The following picture taken from www.goonj.org shows the women making school bags out of old collected clothes:

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In the events like a flood, earthquake or tsunami, Goonj helps the affected regions with supplies of clothes and other items. The NGO is also connected with a lot of other allied NGOs for many activities.

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I wish to continue the collection drive and help others help the poor. And then I have some of my own other plans to help the poor and needy, which I look forward to starting someday.

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- Rahul

Poor and Dishonest?

I went to her to get my slippers mend. She was a cobbler sitting on the road side of a location on the outskirts of Hyderabad. I guessed the price for the job would be Rs 10, or maximum 15. I haven’t seen much variation in cobbler’s charges across India. It was Mumbai first where I saw lady-cobblers; otherwise the job belongs to men in much of North India. I thought the job was slightly less demanding especially when you have a reserved small shop on the foot-path, and hence the trend would be for men to have more demanding jobs and women to occupy their place – at least in the cities. Anyways, she was doing her job and something was going on in my mind. Those days I was trying to find means to do something for the poor. I wondered if I should offer her a hundred rupee note. What if she used it to buy alcohol for herself? Should I ask her if she had young children in school and then help her with something specifically for them? My chain of thoughts got a break when I heard, “Rs 25”. What? “Rupee 25 is too much. Take Rs 10; it should be fair.”

To my surprise, she protested strongly. She started explaining about the job done which I showed to her was not much. Still, I gave her Rs 20. She said she won’t leave the remaining Rs 5. Then she commented something interesting, “You people come from UP (Uttar Pradesh) to Hyderabad and want to dictate me what should be the charge?” So it was about exploiting the “outsiders”? I got angry and asked her why she was bringing “UP” in between? If she asked Rs 100 for the job, should I give it to her only because I came from outside Hyderabad? She took a backseat hearing this. By the time two other ladies had also come to the shop and they became uncomfortable, perhaps thinking if they would also be charged exorbitantly. Anyways, I left her place after saying that I won’t give more than 20 and she could do whatever she wanted. Moments before leaving, I gave her a last glance and bewildered because I saw a “fun” in her eyes. May be such demands and encounters were “regular” for her.

Should I have given in to her demand? After all, Rs 5 or Rs 25 was not a big sum! I know that most of the street vendors are poor, but am I wrong if I expect a bit of integrity from them? And her comments on “you having come from UP” definitely gave the indication that she was treating me discriminately! Also, if people like me start giving her double the usual price, won’t she start demanding the same high price from the really poor customers too? That would be really bad. Anyways, I don’t know what I learnt from the experience, because such things happen many times in all places in this world. But one thing for sure: it broke my “charity bubble”.

- Rahul

Please Vote for Anuradha Koirala

CNN has selected 10 individuals as Top 10 CNN Heroes out of which it would select one as the “2010 CNN Hero of the Year”. You can vote to select one.

There is only one Indian who features on the list – Narayanan Krishnan who quit as a chef with a five star chain to feed poor and destitute. I voted for Krishnan. But I saw that we could vote for more than one!

And I voted for Anuradha Koirala. I found her work and life more valuable than anyone else.

Read here: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/29/cnnheroes.koirala.nepal/

Even if we feel proud to be Indian, we should support her cause, because it is India where most of sex-trafficking victims are transported to (Report said 10,000-15,000 of them are trafficked to India every year); or through India to other countries including Middle-east.

Do vote for Anuradha Koirala: http://heroes.cnn.com/vote.aspx

Let us free our earth from evil human-trafficking.

- Rahul

P.S. You can even think about supporting her NGO: http://www.maitinepal.org/pages.php?option=Support

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