President A P J Abdul Kalam, while delivering the inaugural address at the 23rd India International Trade Fair in New Delhi in November 2003 said, ‘The driving force for economic development in rural areas is providing urban amenities in rural areas and it’s the treasury of nation development’ and we at Helping Brainz thought of starting with ‘child education’.

As a step-one process, to empower the Children from the Slums of Okhla, Helping Brainz’s Child Empowerment Team conducted Ujjwal – Okhla – 2016, an event where around 140 underprivileged children from various parts of Okhla -1, participated and painted their dreams. They all were from Chiranji Lal Shiksha Samiti – Okhla Phase1, a school dedicated to child empowerment run by Shri. Bhavesh Kumar, a motivating personality in himself. This was also part of our Diwali Celebrations with the underpriviledged.

The event which was inaugurated by Dr. (Prof.) Jagtar Singh (Prof, Department of Library and Information Science, Punjabi University, Patiala; Professor-in-Charge, Bha Kahn Singh Nabha Library; President, IATLIS and SATKAL) and Prof. Rohtas Sharma (Principal, Directorate of Education School, Janak Puri, New Delhi), consisted of (a) Paint your dreams event, (b) school stationery distributions, (c) one time meal distribution, (c) music and dance show by children and (d) dental health check for all the children.  Prof. Jagtar and Prof. Rohtas talked about ‘education’ and ‘child empowerment’; and strongly mentioned about its importance in the process of empowerment.

The entire event was orchestrated by Pankaj Jha, Sandeep Kumar and Navotsana Shubhangi Sharma (Child Empowerment Leaders, Helping Brainz), the school stationery items and the meals were sponsored by Maitreyee Dasgupta, Aayushi Dhiman and Ajit Mahapatra; prizes were sponsored by Neha Agarwal and Rahul Arora from Ameriprise Financials, Gurgaon; and dental health check campaigns were conducted by Dr. Nidhi Garg and Dr. Ieshita Misra.

Others who contributed their best to make this event happen were, Ritu Raj Ji (NGOsIndia), Ajit Mahapatra (Ameriprise Financials, Gurgaon) and Prashant Bhaskar (Healtians),  Ainee Tanwir (VP – Organizational Effectiveness), Rupak Kashyap (VP – Peace programmes, Helping Brainz), Vivek Vaid (Manager- Operations, Helping Brainz), Pratik Bishen (Manager – Marketing, Helping Brainz), Priyanka Dewadas (Manager – International Relations & Internships, Helping Brainz), and Yedhu Krishna Menon (Founder, Helping Brainz).

Now as a step – two, Helping Brainz will be conducting a series of teaching programmes led by Pankaj Jha, educational and career counselling sessions led by Vikas Jain and Somnath Shukla, followed by Peace Programmes led by Rupak Kashyap within next 3 months. This was the 71^st event orchestrated by Helping Brainz in 220 Saturdays of community service, and the 32^nd child empowerment project. Our next child empowerment event (Ujjwal Meerut 2016) will be held on Nov 12^th in Partapur Village, Meerut for around 400+ underpriviledged children.