Project Hope: Your Little Loan Will Light Up a Village

I write this to request you for a little loan. Yes, I write this to ask you to lend a little of your hard-earned money - money that will help light up many a dark homes of Jaynagar, a poor far flung West Bengal village.  It will help Ayonara Molla buy a solar lantern for her home.

Ayonara Molla and her neighbours in the village of Jaynagar are frequently bogged down by the irregular electricity supply to the village. Like in many other parts of the country, electricity supply is erratic here, with frequent power cuts that many a times last up to 12 hours at a time. Other power alternatives are either expensive and so beyond their meagre means or are less heavy on the pocket but unhealthy. These women now wish to buy solar lanterns for their homes and it is for this reason that they are looking for a loan of Rs. 8000 - to buy solar-powered lanterns. These lanterns last up to 8 to 10 hours on full charge and need no additional fuel except the light from the sun.

Having a cheap alternative source of light will not only improve the quality of life of these villagers but would also help them to efficiently continue with their daily work even after sunset. Having a regular and cheap power alternative will also ensure that their children can continue with their studies despite the frequent power cuts.

The Hope Project: To help Ayonara and many needy women like her, Milaap has come up with the Hope Project - a campaign to inspire urban masses towards empowering rural women through small monetary contributions.  Your contribution , or loan as we call it - would be just that, a loan, and not charity or donation. Once the need of the borrower is met, the money you loan would gradually be repaid to your Milaap account. Subsequently you will have the choice of either re-lending your money to some other needy borrower or withdrawing the amount from your Milaap account.

Here's how Milaap's loan cycle works

Choose a borrower from the listed profiles, based on the impact area you are most concerned about

Make your loan online, all of your money get disbursed through field partners

As the borrower repays your loan, the amount get accumulated in your Milaap account 

You can either withdraw the repaid amount, or re-lend to another needy borrower.

The Hope Project: To help Ayonara and many needy women like her, Milaap has come up with the Hope Project - a campaign to inspire urban masses towards empowering rural women through small monetary contributions. Your contribution, or loan as we call it - would be just that, a loan, and not charity or donation. Once the need of the borrower is met, the money you loan would gradually be repaid to your Milaap account. Subsequently you will have the choice of either re-lending your money to some other needy borrower or withdrawing the amount from your Milaap account.

Your little help will go a long way in helping someone lead a better life. Please do your good deed of the day, and contribute whatever you can to light up Ayonara and her neighbours' lives. The payment can be made through Debit/Credit cards and net Banking, and you can make the payment in Indian currency or US dollars.

Here's the link to make your contribution: http://milaap.org/fund/anoyara-molla-and-group/2096?&referrer_id=8827

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

'If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.' - Mother Teresa

This post has been written for the Hope Project undertaken by Milaap on Indiblogger.

Blogging: Writing, Inspiring, Networking

As I think about what to write for this prompt, my mind wanders down memory lane, and stops around the nooks of the building where I am a trainee journalist writing report after mundane report on this and that, and sulking about the inanity of it all. Some where around this time a colleague introduces me to the big and wondrous world of blogging. A blog, he explains, is an online diary of sorts where one could share their writings and photos. And that if I wanted, I could start my own blog and could unleash the creativity that I always cribbed about. And that's how I make my own blog - finalizing a name for it, gradually putting all the layout together, and finally getting down to write the first tentative uncertain posts.

Now that I reminisce about it all, my blog was my virtual diary indeed, where I could pour my heart out - I could WRITE about anything and everything. Random conversation with the rickshawala, an hour spent observing the mad woman across the street, a story about a lovelorn girl, musings about a hindi film from the 60s, comments on the lyrics of a particular song - my blog was the place where I could write anything without the fear of it being edited or modified to suit someone else's fancy.

Blogging for me initially was just about venting my observations and musings, and readers did not really matter. Though I must acknowledge that when friends and random readers came visiting and left a comment or two, it felt good and I would beam around a bit and would read and re-read my own posts, wondering what was in there that captured someone's interest.  The comments and interaction encouraged me to write more. It also helped me NETWORK with many fellow bloggers - blogger shared what they wrote, who read my posts, helped when I faltered, complimented when I won and pulled me up when I fell short of words. Bloggers, who with the passage of time have now become my buddies. 

It's now been a few years since I have been blogging. From writing about random observations and musings, I have moved on to experimenting with many creative themes and prompts, all thanks to the many blogging communities. From posts on big and small social and political issues to fictional tales about car tyre going flat on a deserted road, these communities give me ample opportunity to write more often and write on topics beyond my comfort zone. Just recently I got an opportunity to write on gendercide - deliberate and systematic killing of the female child, and the post was very well received and remains one of the most read post of my blog. The detailed post inspired many readers to do their bit against this heinous practice. It gave me a high too. Yes. A sense of pride in the fact that the what I write is motivating enough to INSPIRE people to do their bit towards the cause. Isn't it an exhilarating feeling to read comments where readers say that your post was beautifully written and it has inspired them.  You bet it is! :)

I am no slogan shouting, placard holding activist, neither a big-shot writer who has best-sellers to her name. I am just another eager soul who wants to share the incessant monologues that go on inside her head. Incesant monologues, random asides, musings, sane thoughts and insane tirades, quips, banters and what nots. It feels nice to scribble them down on the blog. And it feels even nicer when somebody stops by to read them all and leaves a warm comment or two. 

Blogging indeed has been a big, big blessing. 

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

This week the entry must contain the words - write, inspire  & network.