Saifunnisa SK - Champion - Social Volunteer Awards 2020

Myself Saifunnisa S.K, a budding Psychologist from Kannur, Kerala. In future, I want to become a Community Psychologist. I believe that the development must begin from community level. So I love to work for the community development. As a psychology student, I always prefer to volunteer in the field of mental health. And my second preference area is providing sex education in community level. I started my volunteering journey in 2010 through Bulbul. After that I volunteered in many organisation and communities and different areas. All these experiences are so special for me. Because it all made me a social volunteer and teach me the real volunteering lessons. Through this volunteering journey, I got my field of interest in volunteering. My dream is to start an organisation where I want to provide proper sex education in community level and empowering sexually abused victims.

VOLUNTEERING STORY

I started my volunteering journey from my 5th standard through Bulbul, through community services like road cleaning, planting, visiting & interacting with humans on old age homes etc. Then I joined Bharat Scout & Guide, where I engaged in a lot of social service activities like teaching school students, palliative visits, organising medical camps, farming, proving first-aids to needy people, traffic duty, food distribution and coordinating all events in school. I received Dwitiya Sopan, tritiya Sopan, Rajya Puraskar and Rashtrapati Award for social service. The experience in Bharat Scout & Guide had motivated me to join the National Service Scheme where I engaged in camps and other social activities. Inspired by the experience in school, I joined the NSS unit of my college; from where I took my volunteering to another phase. I began engage in undertaking social campaigns for child-women protection against sexual abuse and to promote the importance of Mental Health. Later I joined Psychological First-Aid under Kannur District and started volunteering for communities to provide psychological support during Kerala Flood 2018 and coordinated the initiative - Together We Can, which aims to provide written-note books to those who lost their books at the period of flood . During Kerala Flood 2019, I volunteered to rebuild a library in Malappuram. Then I joined Team Incubation and volunteered to spread awareness on Autism. Later I joined The Gulmohar Foundation and had coordinated in developing TGF Listening Community, which aims to promote mental health and active listening. I was also part of TGF Readers and Writers Community and is working to create a magazine. I had created a good network of friends from TGF, which led my way to #justiceforhashtags; a youth community which aim to advocate and protect women-child rights. Where I started to coordinate events for the organisation for the benefit of the community. Through this community we start providing sex education to the childrens and parents, providing defence training to the students through online, legal support and mental health support to the sexually abused victims and various social awarness campaigns. During the lockdown of COVID-19 Pandemic, along with my friends we started an initiative called Isolation Thoughts, which aims to provide mental health support to the childrens and educate them through fun/entertainment sessions and tasks. This is my small volunteering story.

VOLUNTEERING JOURNEY

I have been volunteering since 2010, when I was in 5th standard I start my volunteering journey with Bulbul. That experience motivated me to continue as a volunteer. After that I joined many organizations and communities as a volunteer. From each place I got lots of experiences and learnings which helped me to change my perception about volunteering. The happiness while helping others, connecting with new people, creating new changes inspired me to volunteer.

VOLUNTEERING FOR ME

For me volunteering is about sharing smile and love with others, connecting with people, learning new things through experiences, moulding myself and bring the necessary and sustainable changes in the community.

PROJECT

Promoting Mental Health and Active Listening.