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Fellowship

Walking With the Community  A Journey of Trust, Voices, and Small Transformations

When I look back at the last few months of my Swar Fellowship, I realise that the most powerful part of this journey hasn’t been the activities or the reports, it has been the quiet, slow, human process of building trust. As fellows, we enter communities with a project plan, a purpose, and a list […]

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Fellowship

THE UNSEEN LABOUR OF WOMEN IN THE MOUNTAINS: THE QUIET STRENGTH OF KUMAON

There is a word in Bangla “স্থিতপ্রজ্ঞা” which means a person who stays calm, balanced or steady no matter what the situation is – good or bad.  If I had to describe the woman of the mountains in one word, then it would essentially be this word.  Living in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand has […]

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Fellowship

MOO-ving Away from the Herd

It started with a simple observation.I visited multiple schools during field visits for my project, and in every school I went to, I saw the same pattern repeat: students copying and asking each other for answers for a survey even after being told that there were no right or wrong answers. My first thought was, […]

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Fellowship

Memory Bank of Fellowship- From Fellow to Family

“Which project location will I get?”This question echoed in my mind when I joined the JSW Foundation Fellowship in September 2023. My journey began in Pune, on the auspicious day of Ganapathi Festival—a vibrant, culturally welcome to a path that would transform me deeply. That day, strangers became co-fellows, and soon co-fellows became lifelong friends. […]

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Fellowship

What Happens Next?

Not a Plan. Just a Pause. I don’t have a five-year plan.I don’t have a big announcement.What I have is silence. A pause. A moment that feels like standing at the edge of a long road – dusty, uneven, but somehow beautiful. This fellowship wasn’t just a job. It wasn’t just “fieldwork.” It was a […]

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Fellowship

Two Years That Changed Everything — But Not the Way I Thought 

I came into this fellowship full of dreams, wide-eyed, hopeful, and determined to make a difference. I believed that when your intentions are pure, the world opens up for you. That if you really want to work, you can work, and everything else will find a way.  But life didn’t go that way.  These two […]

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Fellowship

Coming to terms

I was sure I would not do a ‘normal’ job. What is normal I can’t say for sure but have a general idea of how it works. Everyday, 9-5 you sit at a desk and put all your time and some of your effort to make sure that the manager meets their targets and the […]

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#PowerInYou Citizenship Impact Volunteering skill-based volunteering Volunteering Volunteering in India

 Is Volunteering Good for your Mental Health?

We live in a world where happiness is seen as a destination. A world where mental peace and stability is often overshadowed by high paying jobs, responsibilities and the urge to get ahead. Another aspect of life that is often ignored and also one, which makes us human is service.  “I slept and dreamt that […]

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Impact Volunteering

Volunteering- a way to give back to society!

Our volunteer from Pune – Ms. Shobha Javalgikar, who is a trainer and counselor,speaks about her volunteering journey with iVolunteer. Shobha is helping an NGO in Pune for translating  their communication material. Let’s see what she has to say about iVolunteer. “It really gives me pleasure to speak about iVolunteer. iVolunteer is playing a pivotal […]