AmuraSoch CSR: Making a difference with Sarthak Seva Sangh

“How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

We recently met Dr.Anil Kudia, founder of Sarthak Seva Sangh – a rehabilitation center for vulnerable street children between the age of 5-15. He’s taken up the noble cause of providing these children with a wholesome life that’s safe and nurturing, away from the trauma that they are used to facing every day.

When we first spoke to Dr.Kudia and met him at the center, we decided to take Anne Frank’s words to heart and collaborate with him in his inspiring endeavor.

Sarthak provides shelter, food and basic necessities to street orphans and street children facing trauma in their family. The process wasn’t easy, as Dr.Kudia told us. It took him a while to gain the trust of the people and the parents, to prove that he was doing good and offering these children a better lifestyle. Today, the center has over 50 children that live symbiotically, attending the nearby Government school and participating in infrastructural upkeep that will help them vocationally – for example, we found that a few of the older kids had learned how to weld, paint, fix things around the center. In the future, Dr.Kudia hopes to be able to provide vocational courses for the children, so they can fend for themselves out in the world. Even today, he has plans for a library, a new girls hostel, a guest room for expat volunteers and more.

Amura conducted our first visit to the center on 3 October, armed with cricket equipment, cards, board games, and positivity. We were slightly apprehensive – would the children interact with us? Would they engage in the activities we had planned out?
As it turned out, we needn’t have worried – they were all so excited and overjoyed at meeting us and playing cricket. It was truly inspiring; despite the trauma and the hardships they have had to face, all we saw was a sea of happy, smiling faces that were excited to have someone new to meet and play with. It was an afternoon well spent and, we’ll admit, we didn’t quite feel like leaving.

As a part of the CSR initiative, we also decided to help the center in kind – donating food, snacks, soaps, basic essentials that will be of help in running it – especially when we found out that the children don’t get a snack between lunch and dinner. In the near future, we’d also like to conduct crowdfunding activities to help Dr.Kudia with his mission.

In the meantime, we’re looking forward to more visits we’ve planned for the coming months – to play with the children, talk to them and really create a friendly bond that goes beyond CSR into an initiative that makes an emotional impact.