IMPACT!!!

hmmm. i am feeling guilty. a LOT guilty. its been over two weeks since my last post. not that i was busy riding a rickshaw throughout the nights to earn enough money to complete my education... its just that i was plain lazy and i was not at home for most of the weekend. so no posts.
last saturday, all of us (friends) went to Nagarjun Sagar, some 140km from Hyderabad. we had LOTS and LOTS of fun. strange that though all of us have been in Hyderabad for the past 3 years, only one of us visited the place in recent past... One of my friends bought a new car and so that was our mode of transport for the day..
we went on a boat ride to an island (forgot its name)..this island has a BEAUTIFUL museum.. consisting of all the treasure of artifacts that would have been washed away when the dam was built in that place. everyone needs to take a vacation atleast once in two months.. it does a loooottt of good. most of us were actually looking forward to going to the offfice.. can you believe it?

this saturday was our company's Corporate Social Responsibility day. its called Impact Day. the activities ranged from thanking the traffic police and MCH (Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad) to going to old age homes and Juvenile homes. its done every year.
my thread was called Street to Smart. there were about 110 members in this thread. and we went to three schools. Divya Disha (http://www.divyadisha.org/), Nav Jeevan and FFSC, a foster home for juvenile kids.
i went to Divya Disha. this is a school which provides education, food and shelter to kids. the age group of the kids is from 7 to 18 years. the kids who come here are from two backgrounds -- one who are lost / missing from homes and the other who are sold off by their parents / relatives. the whole point is to provide education to these kids. it is up to the kids to stay there and continue studying or just run away from there. almost 70% of the kids have stayed back to study, but the rest have run away from here.

i dont know how many of you have visited such schools. most of us who have visited these schools have a unanimous opinion. these kids are very very bright. all they need is for some one to show the RIGHT direction. i think the kids are very bright because they are street smart.... literally. they must have faced so many tough situations earlier (before joining the school), that they can tackle any kind of situation.
but i have also observed one thing. its each to their own here. i mean if my friend gets hurt or is unwell, i would be concerned. i would help her out. but these kids dont have this sense of belongingness.. may be because of their past or may be because of some other unknown reason. i really felt bad. deep down in their hearts they are still scared.. scared as to when they have to leave the place and move away in search of some work so as to feed their family. may be we are addressing only one half of the situation.. we need to instill the sense of togetherness among them.
i may be right, i may be wrong, but that was what i felt.