Persistence
I spoke a bit about this in the Leadership section, Persistence is an idea that is a real test of character over 5 years in high school we stick with an initiative (Old age homes, Cancer hospitals etc.) and go there every Saturday to heal others as well as ourselves, we try to heal them of their pain by distracting them while healing ourselves from all the wounds our inhibitions and the idea of being "entitled" give us. I strongly believe that as a responsible citizen it is imperative that we give to the space that gives us so much.
We go to these initiatives hoping to leave a legacy and to create an impact . Measuring impact in such a case is quite difficult since there is no real way to quantify emotions, but yes some actions like the smiles and blessings do really motivate me to go there each day. I am personally very attached to the old age homes since I have developed a very close relation with most grandparents there, I literary get phone calls from them to ask me if I am okay even if I miss a single session, just the fact that they care to take there phones and call me really motivates me to go there every single session. Over this year I tried to measure impact. I wanted to see what I have been able to do as the leader of my Persistence team and what impact I had on the grandparents at these old age homes. So I decided to tape somethings the grandparents and my peers had to say about me.
We go to these initiatives hoping to leave a legacy and to create an impact . Measuring impact in such a case is quite difficult since there is no real way to quantify emotions, but yes some actions like the smiles and blessings do really motivate me to go there each day. I am personally very attached to the old age homes since I have developed a very close relation with most grandparents there, I literary get phone calls from them to ask me if I am okay even if I miss a single session, just the fact that they care to take there phones and call me really motivates me to go there every single session. Over this year I tried to measure impact. I wanted to see what I have been able to do as the leader of my Persistence team and what impact I had on the grandparents at these old age homes. So I decided to tape somethings the grandparents and my peers had to say about me.
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The data I collected through these testimonials however was quite vague and very qualitative. While the testimonials gave me a detailed insight about how my team and grandparents felt about my performance, this was not re presentable in terms of statistics and data, and hence using my knowledge of data and its analysis and representation from my Passion Project , I carried out a brief impact study with the members of my team. And this was the data that I was able to collect. (This survey was kept anonymous in order to reduce biases)
The second question was " Have the sessions and follow ups become tighter over this year?" My colleague and I had mapped down the "hot spots" and "bright spots" before we started working and we saw follow ups and communication gaps were a big problem at the start, however, we are pleased to see that everyone agrees that follow ups and sessions are now tighter |
The third question was a really important one for us and would be the actual test of whether I had followed my own principle of "walk the talk and moral authority" the question was "have I led by example?", I was really overjoyed by the fact that more that 4/5th of my team members strongly believed I have. I am also trying to find out through the means of feedback from everyone where I can still improve to make this a 100% strongly agree |
These results were a little surprising given that the majority thought that we led by example, the question was "do you look up to us for inspiration?" I was quite happy I was able to inspire more than 2/3rd of my team but it still pricks me that for the rest of the 1/3rd I couldn't. Again using anonymous platform for feedback sharing we hope to get some valuable insights about where we need to work. |
Like I spoke about mapping bright spots and hot spots before, another hotspot that came across at the start of the year was the the yearly and session planning format wasn't working out, so my colleague and I decided to design our very own easy to fill planning format, and were satisfied that for more than 80% of our team we were able to ease and make effecient the task of planning.
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In conclusion, I think there are things that I learnt from my team and things they learnt for me. I believe the things they have learnt from me can now be transferred to their own group of volunteers, who will then transfer it to their volunteers when they become CEO's and so on, it feels great to be responsible for creating a ripple that impacts so many people and allows me to give back to the school and society and leave my legacy. I can proudly say that I have put in more than 96 hours of work in the year and have impacted the lives of more than 15 grandparents and at least 10 of my team members.
Book of wisdom
Over the year apart from just going interacting with grandparents and spending time with them as CEO and COO we realized that all the stories and advice that the grandparents give us are invaluable and should be compiled into sort of a book that can then be available for the world. So we decided to compile a book. We were successfully able to come up with a book that captures advice's and memories and it almost became sort of a memory of those grandparents, even today, I remember collecting an advice in the book of a grandparent who recently passed away, I keep going back to the book whenever I need motivation and think about the great times I had spent with "dada".
Since each initiative needs funds for their weekly functioning I decided that we could use these books as an opportunity to earn and therefore compensate for these costs, therefore, over Diwali I got these books printed and started selling them, I have been able to sell 100 of these books (bought by a corporate I pitched to) which has yielded about 35000 rupees for us in revenue.
Since each initiative needs funds for their weekly functioning I decided that we could use these books as an opportunity to earn and therefore compensate for these costs, therefore, over Diwali I got these books printed and started selling them, I have been able to sell 100 of these books (bought by a corporate I pitched to) which has yielded about 35000 rupees for us in revenue.
Curriculum
This year we also realized that we were not sharing the work we were doing. We thought that if 120 students can create such an impact and change someones life, what if more people join in? The impact would be so much more! So this year we are working on the curriculum for persistence, it is almost a guide that we wish to share with other schools that will help them implement this same idea in their schools and hence will allow more lives to be changed and influenced.