Chinmaya Smiles Back— The Joy of Giving

I had the privilege of studying in Chinmaya Vidyalaya at Bokaro which is located in current Jharkhand. It is one of those rare schools where spiritual education is given equal importance. Even today when we meet any Ex‐Chinmaya we will greet by saying “Hari Om”.

In 2009 a group of 4 Alumni from Chinmaya Vidyalaya started Chinmaya Smiles Back which supported 2 Children from weaker financial background every year by taking care of their Education expenses for Std 11th and 12th . When I came to know about this initiative from my sister, I joined it without any second thoughts.

Below is an excerpt of our daily morning pledge “…we will produce more than what we consume and will give more than what we take..” We decided to give back to our very own school and our city were we grew up as children.

Till today we have supported 27 Students. Initially the journey was tough as collecting a donation of around 3.5Lakhs every year for 4 students was a challenge. Also we were a small group of people with too many tasks in hand like advertising in various schools for the CSB Vidya Vritti scholarship, conducting interviews, selecting the most deserving candidates, doing house visits before finally nominating the 2 scholars and managing accounts.

But as years passed few more Alumni with similar thoughts joined us and we became more organized. We are now a Trust with 80G registration. Getting funds is still an issue but we are betteroff then what we were at the beginning. We support those students who are meritorious but from weak financial background. This small effort into their lives have resulted in big achievements.

Our very first scholar is just one Final Examination away from being a Chartered Accountant. Our Scholars have cracked IIT Mumbai and BPSC(Bihar Public Service Commisions) with good ranks. One of our scholars topped in Arts Stream in 12th. Few Scholars have decided to become Contributors & Volunteers for CSB initiative ‐ How Life comes a Full circle for us.

I am a CSB Volunteer & Trustee from Pune. This Volunteering experience gives me immense satisfaction as I got a chance to do something for the same Vidya ka Mandir, which gave me so much. We will keep making the difference into the lives of few deserving children every year.

 Author: Hrishikesh Chawda