Yasar Arafath - Primary Short-listed Nominee - Social Volunteer Awards 2021

Yasar arafath is a social entrepreneur from Malappuram, who is an enchanting person with varied perspectives and innumerable capabilities. He is currently pursuing his B tech in Mechanical Engineering and is one of the co-founders of Arise, an NGO which is a breakthrough in the field of volunteering for youngsters. As a former District Volunteer Secretary of NSS Technical Cell Malappuram, his volunteership is truly a model to be emulated. The deft touch he has in bringing up new initiatives makes him an adept at volunteering. Moreover, he is the director of Quadreo Enterprises Pvt. Ltd. As such, he is a social volunteer and plays a significant role not only in Arise but also in various organizations spread across the country. Human engineering is a concept deep-rooted in his mind, and is always interested in being a storyteller, exploring various lives.

VOLUNTEERING FOR ME

In my opinion, volunteering is the idea reflected in the minds of each volunteer. It is that act which is shapeless and beyond definitions.These range from self satisfaction to collective joy through simple deeds and efforts.

VOLUNTEERING JOURNEY

I would like to give a two way response for this. Firstly I have never thought about the age in which I started reflecting a positive influence in the lives of others. Like how I said before, volunteering is one's potential for others and in that sense I think limiting it to just numbers would not be ethical. However, in the sense of social volunteering, the idea reached me only a few years ago, approximately three years where my experience took a new form with organisations and team efforts. The new form was very much pleasing and the first organisation that I worked with is,that which give birth to a million volunteers for the country and the world inturn - National Service Scheme. My inspiration to join National Service Scheme was purely out of curiosity and that paved the way for volunteering as a passion.The activities associated with, the people whom I came across, the spirit which holds my heart, the brainstorming ideas for betterment, the peace of mind that I enjoyed are all the contributing factors that lead me to the path. My inspiration for volunteering is not just confined to a particular thing, but there are a lot of factors which contributed to my life as a volunteer. And the reason for why I choose volunteering is still unanswered, as I am still on my track exploring the newer scope of volunteerism.

VOLUNTEERING STORY

In my perspective, every individual is a volunteer at some point. As such, everyone starts volunteering from a younger age without even knowing what it actually is. Volunteering can be done in many ways. It can be in the form of a help offered to someone or even a smile. In school and college days, youngsters come across a different perspective of volunteering. In my life, volunteering started during my college days. When I started my college life, I entered one of the best social volunteering platforms, which is known as National Service Scheme. That was the start that paved the way for the volunteer in me. I was an active volunteer and gradually I started loving NSS. As I was an active volunteer I got a lot of opportunities to attend many camps. During the first year itself, I attended a mini camp, a Nature camp and a 7 day camp. Apart from that, I got a chance to attend 2 State camps. When I entered second year I got selected as the volunteer secretary and with that I got the biggest chance to become the district volunteer secretary of Malappuram. From there, I got a lot of opportunities to not only work with my team mates, but also to work with other organizations and diverse groups. With the college volunteering I also worked for the Malappuram Coordination Team. My volunteering circle started to expand and along with this I attended a training session of Kerala Youth Volunteer Force, which helped me gain a lot of contacts .From there I stepped into one of the greatest NGOs named THE GULMOHAR FOUNDATION (TGF). After joining TGF I experienced a different type of volunteering .From there my point of view about volunteering started to reshape. Also I got an opportunity to be a part of 1 or 2 projects of TGF. One was" Bottle Up Challenge", which was done in our college.It was a challenge against plastic bottles.For that, we distributed some steel bottles to nearby schools.And the other one was "Climatic Ride"which was a cycle ride. When I was working in TGF as an active volunteer I got an opportunity to know more about other NGOs .Along with this I started to take sessions at NSS camps,schools etc. While I was taking sessions, I started becoming a part of many organizations and worked well there. As I have got a good v olunteering experience ,I just felt something missing somewhere. From that I got inspired and started to think why can't we make a change through a project or a platform for youngsters. So, as a project we started to think about a platform where volunteering skills of youngsters will be channelized for social benefit.And this is where 'ARISE' was implemented. We started with small works, but always wanted it to be different from a usual volunteering perspective. We started to think bigger and better and that was when we thought of making ARISE an NGO or Non-Governmental organization and we made it an NGO. Now I am one of the co -founders of ARISE and is still working in nearly 10 NGOs . Arise has now progressed with over 800 volunteers, nearly 20 incubated projects and over 5000 beneficiaries. Even though my NSS career has come to an end, I am still working for my college and for Malappuram district, exploring the newer dimensions of volunteerism.