Monday, January 31, 2005

Second one

Second:

The idea is to help an underprivileged child in his/her education by mentoring and by helping financially.

It all started when I thought abt myself and what difference it could have made had I had a mentor who has seen the world, achieved a lot and had guided me from early on in my career. Also, looking at some of my achiever friends, I realize the difference their parents have made in their own lives. I have this great opportunity to make a difference in someone else’s lives.

Also look at my capability to earn. It’s far higher than an avg Indian. And look at farmers from AP committing suicides because they don’t have 20K to pay off their loans! A family gets ruined when a farmer commits suicide. Or look at students who don’t have money to pay their fee. Money has very high utility to them when compared to what it gives me. Can’t I help a child pay his/her fee? How much will it cut into my wealth? Not much. And what’s the difference it makes in a child’s life? Very big. So let me do it.

My current plan is to be conceptually clear abt who am I going to mentor (in Tamilnadu/Andhrapradesh or boy/girl etc), how to select (acads/financially needy), how much to involve myself (select from a hostel like Ramakrishna Matt? Or a poor family ? Should I be continuously involved in studies or during weekends?..) should I have any conditions (abt academic performance etc) for continuing help? What if the student continuously fails to study well (despite my efforts)? How should I help (finances or in kind?) etc

Once I am clear about these and probably in a few weeks, I will bounce off these ideas with my friends, family and an undergrad professor I trust and take it forward. I think I will get lot of inputs from that professor.

And abt my placement in KPO company, it is still dragging cos the CEO is unable to give an appointment now. Hopefully something will happen over the weekend.

And O.. "friends" in my last post is abt friends TV show (Rachel, Joey Tribbiani etc)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And the third?!!!
Nice!

Anonymous said...

Nice thoughts.
In fact, even I want to do something like that; but before that I need to get something good for myself. I mean, I am not in as good position as you are / you are going to be. Hopefully my admission to ISB will go thro and I would be able to do something like this after couple of years.

I really appreciate your thoughts; something which I feel about myself.

Alex said...

Hey Chanakya,
All the best!