An Internship worth a Lifetime

My name is Farzan Bashir, a final year student of Law, pursuing B.A LLB (Hons) at the Faculty of Law, University of Kashmir, and this is my 2nd month as an intern with CRY. Although, I initially had come for a period of one month, there was something that kept me glued to this organization.

So it all started with me in my hostel, searching for an NGO to work as an intern. While sifting through the names I came across CRY. I found the name quite interesting and was even more surprised to know that it was an Indian NGO with branches in the US and the UK. My plan to do my Masters in Human Rights also played a major role in peaking my interest. Moreover, on my birthday, exactly one year ago, I had decided that I would be working for underprivileged children by my next birthday. I reached their website and decided to apply for an internship.

I woke up the next morning to a call, surprisingly, from CRY. “Hello, this is Veronica Xavier from CRY” she said, and I froze in that moment. I wasn’t expecting a response so very quickly. I was asked to fill out a form to start my formal application process. Hopeless as I was of getting through, I did fill out the form rather casually but was surprised when I got a response from CRY asking the start date and tenure of my internship. Knowing my capacity and considering my perception of working in NGOs, I generously applied for a month’s internship, which I thought would be more than enough.

I came to Delhi, figured out a place to stay- a house near my workplace- SWATI (an NGO funded and supported by CRY), in the Tigri Khanpur locality.

On the first day of my internship, I met the staff and was then sent to my first ever class. There were some 20-odd kids in the age group of 10-14, all ready and eager to learn. I had a little chat with them, and a lot became clear to me.

Coming from a state, which I believe is one of the most backward and underdeveloped in India, I've always had a strong belief that the Kashmiri youth do not get enough opportunities to showcase their talent. But this perception was changed when I worked with the kids at SWATI and made a few community visits to the slums where these kids lived. During those visits I came to know that the dropout percentage of the kids in that area was at an alarming high and although CRY, through ground level NGOs like SWATI, was doing a fabulous job, it wasn't enough. The reason behind such high dropout rates, as I understood, was the loss of interest in either the child or the parents. I realized that though Kashmiri youth had fewer opportunities, they were altleast fortunate enough to receive education.

There was a kid in my class, Deepak, who I lovingly called “Vidhayakji”, for he had a beautiful voice and seemed like a born orator. I remember, the first day I met him, I did tell him that he can either be a good writer or a politician, for his voice had that magical charm.

One day, out of the blue, Deepak came to me and said that he had written something and handed me his notebook. As I went through a couple of his hand written pages, I was moved with every word I read. This kid, a 13 year old, had written a beautiful short story. It was unlike anything I had ever read or seen before. I felt proud and ashamed at the same time; proud because I felt somewhere it was my advice that motivated him to write, and ashamed because I always felt the lack of opportunity for Kashmiri youth. There stood this kid, shattering this image of helplessness that I had created. He didn’t have a proper pen or a notebook, but still had managed to give us a glimpse of his talent. Over next few days, he wrote 4-5 short stories, each one better than the other. Isn’t this astounding and inspiring?

After my initial month of internship was over, I couldn't help but extend my internship by another month- that's how impressed and moved I was by the work done at CRY.

After my interning stint at SWATI came the second leg of my internship, working with CRY- the fund raising event called “Bake for CRY”, which was as unique as this NGO was turning out to be. In this event, CRY reached out to various Bakeries and Home Bakers who donated baked goods for the 7-day long event (my last week of internship). We had to visit various corporate offices, set up our ‘CRY table’, talk to people about CRY's agendas and give the baked goods to them as a token of appreciation for any sort of help that they offered. “We are not selling them! I repeat, we are giving them away as gifts for the donations we receive”, said Sweta, the Senior Manager of Volunteer Action team of CRY. It was during one of the meetings for the event when I really got to know about the two fantastically awesome and inspiring ladies who were running the Volunteer Action team- Veronica Xavier and Sweta Bhattarjee. Besides, I was also introduced to a few people who I didn’t know would become such close friends for life- Shloka Tiwari, Yatin Raj Singh and Sandeep Meena  (These were the most talented, hardworking, intelligent people I have ever met who have a heart of gold).

We worked together over the next 7 days, helping out as much as we could to make this event a success.

We started on a Monday and reached ‘Triburg’, our first corporate. It turned out to be a rather disappointing day. Exhausted and disheartened, we were on our way back, but were surprised to receive a call from ‘Triburg’, who were calling us back again promising a better show. Then came the next day- The Game Changer. We reached the office on time and amazingly were given a very special treatment. We were seated in the conference hall of the lovely establishment with people coming in, listening to what we had to say, taking interest and helping out in whichever they could. In return, they got freshly baked goodies.

We were startled to see the number of people coming to meet us and we had to close shop early as we went out of stock. The collections were more than we could ever imagine. Happy and elated as we were, we planned on surprising the office. But little did we know that we were getting a surprise of our own. Veronica and Sweta had somehow already obtained the news about our successful day and just when we entered the office, there were snow sprays all around and everybody was up and cheering. They celebrated our success as their own which inspired us to do even better the next time. As the event reached its end and so did my internship, I didn’t want to leave. Yes, I had never planned on staying for more than a month, but now I was a changed man.

Sweta Bhattacharjee and Veronica Xavier are the examples of people who infected me with 'so much positive energy' (no don’t correct my grammar, it won’t make sense here), that they have inspired me and pushed me to the next level. Thank you is not enough to show my gratitude to the most “Fantastically Awesome” duo, who I will never forget, for they have had an ever-lasting impact on me.

To close, I would like to say that CRY is not just a name, it’s a family, it’s a bond, it’s a belief and it is Child Rights and You.

~Farzan Bashir