Volunteer

Nayana Rokade

Senior Manager HR, Tata Bluescope Steel

Pune, India

Nayana has 16 years of experience in human resources and participated in ProEngage before, on a similar project requiring her HR expertise. Her first involvement in volunteering was through work - she was assigned to manage CSR in her company. Then she realised there are so many organizations that need professional help and employees, besides providing their skills can benefit from these programs by broadening their horizons, learning to work with different set of people and giving back to society.

Volunteer

Satish Kolte

Director of HR, Indian Hotels

Mumbai, India

Satish is a first-time ProEngager, hence he decided to apply for a project that he felt confident about finishing and providing a value. He wanted to learn how this skill-based volunteering program is conducted as before he did only onsite volunteering that involved rain water conservation. He had a bit of knowledge about policies from the past and thought it’s a great idea to help an NGO that doesn’t have anyone to help them with these policies. He wanted to be fully committed and capable for the project.

NGO

Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra

Bhau Katdare, Project Coordinator

Ratnagiri, India

Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM) is a leading non-government organization (NGO) in India, engaged in conservation of nature through education, awareness, community participation, and research. In the year 1992, SNM started its work in the pristine region of Konkan on the western coast of Maharashtra state in India. SNM has successfully organized various projects in nature conservation, protection, and education with its limited resources.

THE STORY

Project Execution

Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra is located in a remote area in Maharashtra and there is no good infrastructure in terms of available skills. As the organization is applying for funds, each time there is a higher requirement for all the documentation to be provided. They realised they need to update all the documents to meet the funding application requirements and also standardize on how they are managing their team.

Bhau recollects that the volunteers were so well organized. After the first meeting they have prepared a proper plan around the project along with the timelines, allocation of responsibilities and required information to be provided from the NGO. As Satish mentioned, Nayana had worked on a similar project before so she knew how to go about it and that was really an advantage for him.

The crucial part of the project was a huge questionnaire prepared by the volunteers to collect all the information from the NGO required to draft the policies at once. Although it was not easy for the NGO to fill all the information and it took about a month, Bhau praises their approach: “After the questionnaire they only asked to provide a few more explanations and we received the first draft in mid-April. It was so good, almost all the information was there. We only ask for 2-3 small changes.”

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Challenges faced

For Nayana it was a “simple” project: “This NGO was properly registered, and has a very good website, so it was not very difficult to get information. Besides, the NGO director was very helpful, and available.” Also Bhau seconds Nayana: “No challenges at all, both the volunteers were very keen in the project and they did it on time.”

Satish was very happy to work with Nayana as she would review his part of the work and give feedback. He felt very well supported by both Nayana and Bhau during his first volunteering project. “I wasn't sure whether I would get this kind of a response from the NGO, but the NGO was very helpful, I was calling a lot - but they helped me a lot all the time - I didn't expect that Bhau would have given us so much information.” Only thing Satish was missing was visiting the site in person to better understand how they work, as all the communication was online.

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THE EXPERIENCE

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Bhau feels very satisfied with the outcome of this project: “We got our human resources policies - that is a good document for us and it’s covering all HR activities. This is useful not only for our funding applications, but also for day to day activities. We can always refer to this document if there are any doubts.”

“Tata volunteers - all have skills, so they can give the NGOs their best,” Bhau concludes, “both of the volunteers had done a very good project for our NGO, their communication and our HR policy is very good. I would like to give a lot of thanks to them”.

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Satish remembers his motivation behind applying for this project: “I always wanted to give back to society. I've seen this live very very closely, in those villages they don't have knowledge and they struggle a lot. I didn't want these people to struggle and that's why I have chosen an NGO in a remote area. After this successful project, I'm confident that I can help.”

After all it also changed his perspective on giving and accepting help: “I thought, I might want to help, but I wasn't sure how those people will take it, but I found out that people really appreciate it. They want to take help and they reciprocate. All these things make you happy and satisfied - we spent time and it was worth it. Besides, I got much more interested in what Bhau is doing. I was about to visit him, if there wouldn't be a lockdown. I will definitely visit him in the future.”

For Nayana, it was the first time when she was mentoring a first time ProEngager: “Project went pretty smooth. Satish did most of it and I did the reviewing. In the first ProEngage project I was the junior one, so this time it was great to get an experience of mentoring.” She further adds: “I get a lot of satisfaction from helping others. I like to help out. When I see that somebody works for society, I want to chip in. And ProEngage was that kind of a medium. I can't do anything full time, but ProEngage is on weekends - the format was right, opportunity was good and the skills were matched.”

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Project Execution

Challenges faced

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