In ISM for a Day

During last week, I was back to my alma mater, ISM.I was unable to visit ISM during convocation, so it was long overdue. It was a nostalgic moment, starting with the train itself (GD), I was back in time to the days when I used to be a ISM student.

Moving on the rickshaw into the ISM campus, I could identify some familiar faces, a few teachers (though as usual I tried not to be recognised ), a couple of research assistants who helped me during practical exams(I wish to say thanx to them :), but just waved my hands ) and obviously quite a many juniors.

Though, it was a bit hectic , I enjoyed every bit of it. With familiar juniors around, hours were flowing by like seconds. On top of this, add the party on Sapphire roof top and I was truly reliving my student days.

Then, it was great to see FFI growing into such a robust organisation. Starting from a single room and a single computer, the organisation has came a long way. To mention a few of the achievements, we have caterred to more than 350 blood request in the last year, conuselling is underway for a massive 10,000 students of government schools, approximately 50 students have benefitted from the IT literacy project in this semester only. This number is supplemented by inmates of Dhanbad prison who have received IT education from FFI. The youngest of all FFI initiatives,Escape is doing a great service to kids by helping them with communication skills. I saw a few videos of Escape and was awestuck by the presentations of Escape students.However, the thing which makes FFI truly unique is besides benefitting the community, it exposes volunteers to a host of leadership and organisational challenges very early in their career, even before their formal career starts. Such volunteers can be an asset for any organization in the professional arena.


On interaction with volunteers, I realised how closely they are aware of the problems of the society, be it the blood bank situation in dhanbad or the issues they faced while interacting with the school kids. The credit of all the success must go to the ground volunteers who are putting in their extremely valuable time and efforts for the benefit of community. Some are working tirelessly infront of the computers trying to make their students understand MS-Office and Internet Explorer, some are braving the heat & dust to reach the students of government schools and help them take a informed decision about their career and some are saving the lives of poor patients by fecilitating easy blood supply to them free of cost. Infact its the dedication of volunteers which inspires me to keep working for FFI.

Overall, with 100 plus volunteer strength of FFI, the organisation is looking positively into the future. Now we are in the process of executing our expansion plans which include a new centre in Jamshedpur under the leadership of some equally dedicated individuals whom I met during ISM trip. The other cities where our expansion plans are in conceptual stage include Patna, Pune and Noida. With the experience and expertise of three years to back us, we are confident of our success in future endeavours.