First ever Volun-Touring to Panna

Be a helpful friend, and you will become a green tree with always new fruit, always deeper journeys into love. -Rumi

• 

Panna is a town and a municipality in Panna district in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is famous for its diamond mines. Malnutrition, as a major public health and nutrition challenge faced by Panna, stands as a consequence of several key social and economic factors such as lack of education, inadequate health care services and ill-informed cultural behaviors. Underpinning all these is the fact that poverty, by and large, is the principal cause of poor feeding habits. In order to holistically address the issues surrounding malnutrition, a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional complexities at play in society is crucial.

iVolunteer receive a request from Nikita D’cruz, Project manager, project Koshika  to make Nutrition rehabilitation centre (NRC) section visually colorful and attractive for the children and the mothers staying in the NRC for their nutritional health requirements. To help those children and execute this project iVolunteer collaborated with NRC panna and Koshika.

To execute this project, we decided to identify the volunteer who can dedicate their time and skills for this Nobel cause. Volunteer artisan selected on the basis of their merit and history of volunteering with iVolunteer. From iVolunteer total 7 Volunteer Leader participated for 4 Days from 10^th January to 13^th January with total  336 Hours of Volunteering. The volunteer made the beautiful mural on the 2 dormitories and it will help the children to feel good and provide psychologically good environment to recover from Malnutrition to both parents and the children.

After visiting the NRC, volunteers choose different themes to paint on the wall keeping the target beneficiaries in the mind. The following themes were decided unanimously by the sketch artist:

• Jungle Theme.
• Mountain Theme
• Underwater Theme
• Food and Nutrition Theme
• Story telling through art

Based on the themes, sketches were finalized and the same have been drawn on the wall. Once the sketches were drawn, proper color combinations were decided for each and every sketch. Different roles were assigned to the volunteers according to their choice and interest.

The experience of Panna and of volunteering for the Nutrition rehabilitation centre (NRC) was wonderful. The extreme cold and sharp cold air in Panna was challenging and also made the conditions for working at NRC a challenge also, but getting to know the about the condition of children and working for a cause make it all happen the project in the short time it was challenging made it all worthwhile.

I cannot praise enough the support, advice and hospitality shown by Nikita and the Team Koshika , in particular, in the NRC and at the Hotel. Both went beyond the call of duty to welcome and support volunteers and to make everyone feel secure. This was my first time Volun-Touring over the past 2 year working with iVolunteer, and I must say, it was great experience.