On 13th September, Make A Difference is organising a “Back-A-Thon” a national event which is to be held at Juhu Beach, Mumbai at 4:00pm, wherein both the volunteers and the public will walk backwards for a cause.
Make A Difference (MAD) is a national non-profit organisation having its presence in 23 cities, seeking to mobilise young leaders to ensure equitable outcomes for children-at-risk living in shelters. MAD is currently functioning in 77 shelters and interacting with over 4000 children at risk, across the nation. The vision of the organisation is to ensure that these children are able to at least cross the middle class threshold. To secure this goal, MAD has adopted a four-pronged strategy:
– Mobilizing young leaders
– Empowering the child
– Enabling the social sector
– Changing the ecosystem
About Back-A-Thon 2015
Over the last eight years, MAD has been working on empowering children through its programs like “Ed Support” – engaged in providing academic support at a school level, “Discover” – a program aimed at enabling a child to make career decisions and inculcate self-awareness and “Propel” – a program designed to ease transition of a child from shelter homes to colleges or jobs.
Children living in vulnerable conditions are often faced with multiple risks ranging from malnutrition, starvation, physical/sexual abuse, neglect and discrimination. Often, the only alternatives available for them are child care institutions set up by the state or the private donors.
However, shelter homes in India are not always the best options available for a child living in already vulnerable circumstances. They too are faced with multiple challenges ranging from financial crunch, staff quality, and lack of emotional support for the children. Further, the stigmatisation of vulnerable children and the shelters pose additional challenges to the already precarious situations.
Another problem faced by children living shelter homes is the uncertainty of being evicted or moved. Children are often asked to move out of shelter homes or are relocated to other homes. The sudden change in placed may disrupt the school education, emotional support and the safe space that the child had in the homes they had lived in.
MAD believes that for a child living in vulnerable conditions to be truly rehabilitated, schools, shelters, and the society at large which compose the ecosystem in which the child lives, are to be more invested in supporting the mental development of the child.
In order to raise awareness on the critical issues faced by children living in shelter homes, MAD is organising a Back – A – Thon on 13th September, across 23 cities. The event is an awareness campaign where participants will come together and walk backwards in a uniform fashion. By walking backwards, MAD hopes to signify the intent to come together in solidarity for the children at risk who have been relegated to a backward position in the society. The event is open for everyone to participate, whether an individual or an organisation. The official tagline adopted for the event is ‘Care More’. Visit the website to know more, www.makeadiff.in/backathon.
Mumbai Chapter Details
In Mumbai, Backathon is being organised at Juhu Beach from 1600 hours. The city team is targeting around 800 people. The city chapter itself has 310 volunteers from institutions like NarseeMonjee, DJ Sanghvi, Jai Hindetc and operates in 4 shelters across the city namely, YMCA (D.N. Nagar), St. Catherines (Andheri West), Snehasadan (Jogeshwari) and St. Francis (Borivali).
“Backathon is all about raising awareness about the challenges that children at risk, living in shelter homes face and we want to bring about the change through the community” – Siddhant Dube, City Team Lead, MAD Mumbai”
People interested to know more or participate can register online at makeadiff.in/backathon or contact Shrinivas Acharya at +919821169814.
