Mausami Tandon – City Women Icon 2022, Bhilai-Durg
I’m 46 years old and currently a Housemaker, earlier I was a high school teacher for social sciences and languages(Hindi), my educational qualifications are BA, and Double MA(Literature and Sociology).
I recently started a social welfare organization called ‘the Naya Saber’ in 2021 which aims at providing welfare for the needy, it’s a nonprofit organization that works on the principles of donations, and my organization has organized many welfare drives like providing food to the school of Blind Children in Civic Centre(Bhilai), providing clothing to homeless people during winter, providing essentials and equipment like food and washing machines to an old age home in our city and some other small ‘food for needy’ drives.
Being a Homemaker I have spent most of my time investing in Family but from childhood, I have had the urge to help needy people and now when kids are growing up I have comparatively more time to invest in myself i thought of giving my urge a proper organization by creating ‘Naya Sabera’, before this organization i have unofficially done many social drives with other women, many of whom are now a part of this organization, earlier we have organized food for homeless, organized social programs for raising awareness on ‘backwardness’ of women among other things and I now hope with this organized structural organization (Naya Sabera) I would be able to help more effectively.
As said earlier the official organization was started recently in the second half of 2021, and since then we have officially organized 4 programs namely, a food drive for blind children, a clothing drive for the homeless in winter, social providing at an old age home and a ‘swaranjali’ to the great Late Shri Lata Mangeshkar Ji, we are also planning something for the Womens day to raise awareness on the social wrongs that is done against them plus at the same time having some fun with games and stuff, before the official inception of ‘Naya Sabera’ I’m afraid I can’t pinpoint a date when I started my social work and as said earlier it has always been a continuous process with small contributions by many other women as well. as of currently, my organization is currently 30 people strong with 5-10 people in the board and we hope that by small contributions from ourselves and any other people who like to do the same, we would continue to grow and help people as much as possible.
Quite some difficulties, from a family with a Husband and children not getting as much of my time as they deserve to sometimes even not supporting some of my Ideas as they think it might be impossible to achieve but I’m determined enough to make things possible in which I truly believe in, but in an overall sense, my family has been very very supportive and I’m blessed to have that support, regarding society there have not been many problems, because of the times in which we live in there has been a rise in awareness about women role in society and most people I have encountered have been encouraging and supportive but once in while we surely encounter people whether it be women or men who think that such kind of public engaging work should be limited to men as much as possible.
It has been for quite some time now, like I said my motivation has always been there, its just that when I realized that I’m now able to invest more time on myself and not just dedicate myself wholly to my family that I decided its time for my dreams to get a proper structure and hence the inception of ‘Naya Sabera’.My happiest moment was when more and more people started joining my cause and believing me, many of my friends are also part of my organization , so seeing them believe in me so much feels very good, however the most motivation which i receive is from the smiles and happiness which the people get whom we try to help, it is what gets me going and helping me push my limits, i cant express in words how precious those smiles seems when they receive even the smallest of the help, those are the true gems i cherish.And if I talk about recruiting my first team, it was mostly my friends who had earlier worked with me on such unofficial social drives along with some of the contacts from my husband who knew a few people who were in this kind of social work, and noting the fact that our organization is still in its infant phase the real job starts now, the initial phases has been comparatively easier but as we want to help more and more people and hence the next phases of growth would be challenging . My current ideas are just, growing the team so that more such social drives can be organized without us having to think much about financial issues, and we try and organize creative events to allure people like fancy dresses, plays, dramas, song recordings, dances, etc. so that more and more people get to know about our organization and try and help us and the people in need in the process. If I think about my biggest achievement, it could be starting this organization officially without much or to say help from my husband he has been a treasurer for my organization but has to do all the work by myself, interacting with people organizing programs, devising new drives, going to different venues has all been a big achievement in their respect. Regarding giving advice I would only like to say one thing, to never give up and believe in yourself because that is the only thing that is under your control, and only when you believe in yourself that others start to believe in you.
Success is when you do what you like and in the process help other people, I like what I’m doing for my society and every next step I take in this direction is Success for me.