Greetings. We organized a campaign called "Kindness Acts for Traffic Police" today to show kindness and our gratitude towards the public servants. Around 100 volunteers participated in the same. Please find the details and the Press Note about the same below.
The event started at the GLS Auditorium at 9:30 am with a speech on "Connecting Dots" by the Founder of YuVA, Amitabh Shah. It was then followed by the felicitation and experience sharing of 4 chief guests of the event. 3 of the chief guests were kids namely Ashok Parmar, Hitej Solanki and Mehul Solanki from the slum of Gulbai Tekra. YuVA runs a street school for those kids in Gulbai Tekra every sunday 4 to 6 pm. We had taken these kids to Science City the last Sunday. So, the kids came up the stage and shared their experience about the Science City trip and how they learned scientific things and had lot of fun at the Musical Fountains... The fourth chief guest was Suresh Dantani, a 10th standard student from Visamo Kids Foundation, who came up the stage and his experience with YuVA and about Hardeep Pathak, who teaches him since the last 6 months and at whose house he is going to stay for the next 20 days.
Post that, we moved out in two groups to all the major cross roads of Ahmedabad including Paldi, Panchvati and IIM cross roads majorly. At Paldi, we met Mr. Parmar who was sitting in the office. When we told him about out activity, he was so glad and complemented us by appreciating our act. He said, "It is really great to see that some people do care for us."
"Police are not at all bad but its the general public who take us that way. When everyone can follow traffic rules in Delhi and Mumbai, then why can't we follow it here in Ahmedabad? I just want to convey this to the general public if you can spread the message through Media, that you can really help us a lot by obeying the rules", added Mr. Parmar.
Also, we were successful in making Mr. Parmar quit his chewing tobacco habit and he sweared on the name of his wife not to chew tobacco again in his life. And he also helped us in inspiring the rest of the cops and home guards for quitting tobacco habit.
At IIM-A corss roads, we had a word with Mr. Kishor who was the Area In-charge. He was so delighted and excited that after we provided Butter Milk to him, he started taking our videos and photos & said that he would show it to everyone and set an example of how to PAY IT FORWARD.
Fortunately, at IIM-A cross roads, we also happened to meet Mr. Atul Karwal, the Traffic Police Commissioner. In a chat with Saurabh Rawal, one of the Core Team Member of YuVA, Mr. Karwal appreciated the spirit of service & kindness.
"If u need some ideas and help for mass level, then let's do something together the next time. You can do these kind of awareness acts in colleges, youth organizations and schools also. That would really help us", added the lone IPS officer to climb Mt. Everest, Mr. Karwal. We suggested him to do something for the under age driving and his response to that too was very good.
"We can collaborate with traffic and education department simultaneously and then spread awareness at a mass scale", added Saurabh Rawal and Mr. Karwal showed his willingness to support for the same too.
At all the junctions, we started by giving Butter Milk to all the traffic cops and home guards, giving them a jaadu ki jhappi and a thank you card specially made for them. Then, we also started giving buttermilk to all those who broke traffic rules during those hours. We just told them that we were woking with the police but in some differenent way, so instead of paying the fine, you will be provided with one glass of Buttermilk and you have to give a promise that you will obey traffic rules from now on. To all those who broke the rules, we gave Kindness cards too. The response that we got from the rule breakers was also great and amazing. They were all so perplexed and motivated at the same point of time.
"There are always 3 things to make someone obey rules. The first is to force them, the second is to fine them and the third is to provide do a small act of kindness that can motivate them. Everytime they think about breaking rules, atleast they will remember this small act of kindness"
