Bhubaneswar, March 30: Ahead of its 18th foundation day on April 1, the Bhubaneswar-based Bakul Foundation on Sunday organised ‘Bakul Day of Service.’
As part of the Day of Service, about 500 volunteers of the foundation visited around 30 slums across the capital city and did fun and learning activities with about 3,000 children.
The children from slums near the Bakul Libraries in Satyanagar, Biju Patnaik Park and Kalabhoomi were brought to the libraries to instill a love for reading in them.
The Day of Service is being organised in partnership with the Commissionerate Police’s flagship ‘Basti Ku Chala Abhiyan’ for the last three years in which the police have facilitated the activities in the slums.
A special feature of the Day of Service this year has been the support from OMFED in giving Lassi and Rabdi to all the children participating in the learning activities.
Bakul started as a movement to demonstrate the power of volunteerism in 2007 on April 1, the Foundation Day of Odisha as a way to show that the people of Odisha, particularly the youth were capable of bringing about the change they want to see in the State, whether they get support from outside the state or not.
At that time, the general perception was that change was possible only when International donor agencies or big corporates funded such initiatives or projects.
The perception was that volunteerism would not work in Odisha, where people needed jobs.
In 2011, Bakul started celebrating the Day of Service as a part of the birthday celebrations in which hundreds of youth are mobilized to volunteer together in a Day of Service celebrated on the last Sunday of March, just before the Bakul Birthday on April 1.
Subsequently, Bakul also started celebrating another Day of Service on similar lines as part of Daan Utsav, the national festival of giving on 2nd October every year.
According to Shruti Kanungo, an MA student of Sociology, who has been the Chief Coordinator of the Day of Service since 2022, the purpose of the Day of Service was to initiate youth into volunteerism.
Saubhagya Beura, an entrepreneur, who has been participating in the Day of Service for 10 years said that “Such activities happening in the slums help promote social cohesion and foster better interaction and understanding between different social groups.”
