There are several ways to be a part of India’s festival of giving. A few of them have been discussed in detail below:
Volunteering is always a rewarding experience. You can volunteer at an NGO or organize a larger team volunteering event with your friends, staff, and neighbours. For example, you could do a ‘Sewa Sandwich’ event with five of your friends. All you need to do is buy bread, butter, cucumbers, tomatoes, and some sandwich masala or salt and pepper. Then get together and make sandwiches with your group (this will also strengthen your team-building skills). Next, pack and distribute these sandwiches to the homeless in your area. It is fun to strike conversations with the people you give food to as well.
You can also choose to donate pro bono hours to help charities in need of your skills. Organisations like iVolunteer and Bhumi could also help you organisation large-scale volunteering events! Or perhaps, you could organize a donation drive at your workplace, or the area where you stay, for people to donate goods, clothing, and other items for people in need. The bottom line is: Help someone, anyone in need.
Closer to the festival, the #Daan Utsav website will also showcase all the events that will take place in the country. You can also go through the events and their descriptions to identify events where you could volunteer. The event description also usually contains the contact details of the event owner or organiser so that you can talk to them for any questions.
If you think you have people skills or would love to lead a pack of givers, then you can organise an event at your city, workplace, school, college, housing apartment, social or new media platform – choose any place/platform you like. Events could range from organising a charity drive to a marathon in your city and from choreographing a flash mob to getting meals sponsored for the homeless on all seven days of the festival.
Refer to the ‘Design an Event’ section in the drop-down menu on the website for more details on creating events. Alternatively, you could also go to the resources section and refer to or download the ‘Ideas & Examples Toolkit’.
You can donate or you can organise a fundraiser for a non-profit by leveraging #DaanUtsav to expand your donor base and raise more funds across the country. For instance, one giver cooked a sumptuous Thai meal and invited all his friends over for a pay-for-your dinner evening at his house. The funds raised were donated to a charity he supported.
Alternatively, you could also partner with a donor or sponsor to host a matching grant challenge for #DaanUtsav. If you are a corporate, you could create a campaign in which your employees donate an amount of their choice. At the end of the week, you contribute and match the same amount towards a cause that you support.
You can celebrate in several ways using #DaanUtsav’s social media platforms: Facebook (facebook.com/daanutsav), Twitter (@daanutsav), and Instagram (@daanutsav).
Listed below are a few ideas:
#DaanUtsav, and the joy that can be experienced in giving, is so much more than the one week in October. You can pledge to do more throughout the year and experience more joy. You can give a certain amount every month to a charity of your choice, pledge to volunteer every few months, or launch a unique campaign to give back to society after October 8. Just remember, you can keep giving and celebrating life in so many unique ways.