On the first two days Mumbai had lots of rain, a lot of enthusiastic volunteers across ages and classes who turned up at the Campaign. Our total figure of applications made is 103. Most of the time, we have volunteers sitting in groups, and my major job is to keep up their spirits- and promise a better turnout of applicants soon. Yesterday we had over 50 volunteers at one time and a lot of others who offered help. Today at most times we had more than 20 volunteers. Yesterday the CIC and the DGP of ACB Maharashtra came and today,- former Chief Secretary , Mr. B.G. Deshmukh had come. There is likely to be  a pickup in the applications since Churchgate,-where are running the Campaign,-is in the business district. I must however share with you the feeling that we are missing something. It is great feeling to have such an upsurge of volunteers who are willing to work even without a cup of tea being given. In Mumbai, where we feel most Citizens are selfish and apathetic, we are seeing a great dedication, fervour and commitment in a diverse age group-well spread from 15 to 70. On the other hand we have not been able to get enough people to approach us to keep us busy. We cannot deny that there is adequate media exposure. We in Mumbai worked focused only on the organising of volunteers and workshops, and I think we can feel we did a fair job, considering we totally trained over 250 volunteers, and got a lot of them to come even under adverse weather conditions. I am worried that if we soon enough cannot get larger number of applicants turning up, our volunteer morale would be difficult to sustain. 

 

Tomorrow onwards we are sending one group of volunteers to colleges; another, alongwith the NDTV is going  to the Dharavi area-a big Slum;- to try and get the needy to use the service we are offering. We are also trying to get permissions to put up posters at Railway stations tomorrow. This truly is a historic opportunity and if we do not cross 3000 applications in Mumbai, I would be unhappy.

Love
shailesh
022 32903776; 26001003