4 Oct 2010: “Wake Up the Nation” came the rallying cry as yesterday’s National Sewa Day networking event kicked off. I thought the title of Paul Weller’s recent album very apt for the occasion. With 48 days to go, we need to rev up the NSD engine and ensure that participating communities are in the process of finalising their projects and signing up their members.
Yesterday’s event was held at the Swaminarayan Temple in Golders Green with an audience of around 100 community/project leaders. The aim of the session was to enable folks to a) meet each other and share ideas; b) hear from members of our high-powered advisory board.
Proceedings kicked off with a peace-lamp lighting ceremony. Mahesh Varsani (from the temple), Dixit Joshi (NSD Advisory Board), Dhirubhai Shah (from Sewa UK) and I were asked to step up to the stage and each light a candle (about the same time as the Commonwealth Games light was being lit in Delhi, as it happens!). After some opening remarks by me, we invited three of our Advisors to say a few words.
Here’s a few choice extracts from their speeches:
Alpesh Patel (Principal, Praefinium Partners), first up, said: “We have to remember that we are walking advertisements for a civilisation that is over 5,000 years old. Indian culture, more than any other, has a heritage of giving to the community and working together for the betterment of society”…..”We are going through hard times. Relying on the government to run everything isn’t an option anymore. It’s time for you and I to take responsibility for our community and the environment.”
Dixit Joshi (soon to be Head of Equities EMEA, Deutsche Bank and President of the NSD Advisory Board) followed Alpesh and made the following observations: “It’s not that such calls to action have never been made before. It’s just that NSD is the first such attempt to target the Asian community specifically.”….”for those folks who lead busy professional lives and find it hard to find time for volunteering, NSD provides a once a year golden opportunity to give back to the community”
Ramona Mehta (Partner, Miscon de Reya Solicitors) concluded: “NSD year one is crucial. If we fail to make an impact this year…we’re pretty much dead in the water”... “I set a target to each member of the audience here to tell at least 10 people every day, between now and 21 November, about NSD. There’s no reason why we can’t have 30,000 people take part this year!”
We then invited representatives from 5 different organizations to talk about their projects for NSD:
· Baiju Shah, from HSS - Wembley, updated us on their plans to clean up Ealing Road;
· Panna Vekaria and her team from SKLPC will be putting together gift parcels for armed forces serving in Afghanistan;
· Thalbir Shokar from the City Sikhs Network updated us on their projects centering around the homeless and nursing homes;
· Neha Sanghrajka and her team from the Art of Living Foundation will be collecting old teddy bears for re-distribution to needy children;
· Prem Patel and the team from the temple will be joining forces with the local Jewish community on NSD for a number of projects in the Golders Green area.
This was followed by an hour of networking and refreshments.
All registered projects will soon be viewable on www.nationalsewaday.org. If you are a project co-ordinator, please ensure your project information reaches our team to enable us to post it. If you want to volunteer but don’t have a project then please join in with an existing project from the NSD website.
If we can translate the level of excitement at yesterday’s event into footfall on 21 November, there’s no reason we can’t challenge Ramona’s target of 30,000. As a comparison, on Mitzvah Day - the Jewish community equivalent event - 10% of their community participates. If we could replicate the same level of participation, it would equate to over 300,000 people!!...so let’s rock n’roll!
Thanks to all our speakers, attendees and a special thanks to the Swaminarayan temple for staging the event.
Arup Ganguly
Chairman – National Sewa Day
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