Sankalp India Foundation completed its 9th year on 23rd May 2012. This year Sankalp volunteers celebrated this the occasion with friends and well wishers on 19th May, 2012 in one of the seminar halls of M S Ramaiah Institute of Technology. In spite of the hectic schedule laid down for all the volunteers, the anniversary preparations kicked off rigorously one week before the event. The anniversary program in itself consisted of a few cultural programs like songs and skit, followed by talks and presentations about the various events and projects that were taken up by the organization last year.
The program started off by singing our national song Vande Mataram followed by welcoming all the guests which included the blood bank staff of few of the connected blood banks including Rotary Blood Bank - Bangalore, BGS Global - Bangalore, Rashtrothana - Bangalore, regular blood donors, families of Thalassemia kids who take up treatment at the Day care, Sankalp friends and well-wishers, and off course the parents of the volunteers whose support has helped us come this far.
The Highlights Of The Program
Gallery Filled By Paintings And Sketches By Thalassemiac Kids
A gallery was set up outside the seminar hall with many paintings and other art works done by the Thalassemiac kids at the day care. The creativity of these kids was appreciated by many guests who attended the program.
Cultural Events
The need for voluntary blood donation was brought to the notice of the audience by a small skit which showed how one person can donate blood and save up to 3 lives, where a boy who never donated blood before, decides to donate regularly after knowing how thalassemia kids require one unit of blood every month. While the skit was to motivate the audience to come forward to donate blood regularly, we also had a medley of songs like “Des mere Des mere”, “Mera Rang De Basanthi chola” sung joyfully by the volunteers which engaged the audience who clapped to the beats and also joined the volunteers in the song with a smile on their face. 
One of our volunteers even recited a poem of his own composition “Utthishtha Bharat” Arise India, which expressed the lost feeling that a citizen should hold for his nation. The volunteers also sang “Gangeet” the organization's anthem in full energy.
Talks and Presentations
During the program, the volunteers gave numerous presentations highlighting “Work @ Sanklap” in the past one year. The complete annual report about the achievements, failures and challenges faced by the teams was presented. The goals for each team for the next year and as well as the goals set by Sankalp as an organization was also presented
A Note On Thalassemia Day Care
Sankalp India Foundation and Indira Gandhi Institute of Child Health (IGICH), supported by Applied Materials started a Thalassemia Day Care Centre at IGICH on Children's Day, 2011. Children from almost all parts of Karnataka and surrounding states come down here for treatment. A quarterly report of the Day care which included the details about treatment for the children, the facilities at the day care, the responsibilities of the councilor there and the role Sankalp played at the Day care, was presented. This was followed by a video which included the photos of kids, who come for treatment to the day care, videos of kids speaking about their ambitions and hobbies and the kid's parents expressing the changes they have seen, after the Day Care was set up at the IGICH.
5 years Completion of Rakta Kranti
The Rakta Kranti team of Sankalp, which is responsible for conducting camps in various organizations throughout Bangalore completed 5 years in 2011-2012. Sankalp took this opportunity to thank all the companies who regularly organized camps with us. These companies had a dedicated set of Team Red volunteers who would take care of all the facilities needed to organize a camp. They would also motivate and encourage their company employees to come forward and donate blood whenever a camp was organized.
4 companies, namely Applied Materials, Ascends, Cap Gemini and Logica, were felicitated by Sankalp for their overwhelming participation in the cause of blood donation. Employees from these companies came forward to receive the certificate and assured to continue their good work in the future as well.
Apart from these, a general update of the activities of the organization and the finances involved, was also presented.
Guest Talks
Finally, it was time for the guests to share their experience with Sankalp. Mr. Sridhar, one of the regular Bombay group blood donor, shared his experience about how he had donated blood for a small child in Chennai 3 years ago, and the child still calls him and wishes him for all the festivals and shares all her success stories with him. He also encouraged and motivated people to come forward and donate blood regularly by mentioning health benefits of donating blood.
Parent of a Thalassemia kid who attended the program also came forward and expressed his feeling, he said that he had to struggle for a single unit of blood every month before the Day Care was established, and now the Day Care councilor there makes sure the blood unit is available whenever he gets his child for transfusion.
An employee of Logica also came and expressed how Sankalp organizes quality camps in their company and expressed his interest in helping Sankalp financially with the Day Care project.
Announcement of Sankalp Entering 10th Year
As Sankalp completed its 9th and stepped into the 10th year, Sankalp volunteers had big plans to improvise and continue the tasks they had taken up as they geared up to face the challenges that were lined up. Rajat Agarwal, a senior Sankalp volunteer came up to express the plans of Sankalp for the upcoming 10th year. He started by speaking about an incident which took place in one of the North Karnataka districts wherein the patient had to be shifted to a city with better facilities due to lack of the required blood unit in that district. The patient died on the way. If at all there was a unit in that district or any near by district, the person life could have been easily saved. In the up coming year, Sankalp would do its best to prevent such incidents. And the only way this can happen is when we have a better understanding of blood banking in these districts and conduct more camps in these districts so that blood banks here don’t run out of stocks. In its 10th year, Sankalp choose to work harder for the districts of North Karnataka.
The audience present were requested to help conduct more and frequent camps in their companies, colleges or organizations they are associated with. A portion of these stocks will be distributed to different districts in Karnataka and support those district blood banks with good stocks.
Apart from this, for the coming year each team of Sankalp have set their own goals and targets which they plan to achieve in order to achieve the organizational goal as a whole.
Bombay Group Community
Few regular blood donors who belong to Bombay Blood Group also attended the anniversary program, since we had the donors at a single platform; we thought it would be a good idea to discuss with them about opening up a forum for Bombay blood group donors itself in order to make Bombay blood search easier. A small discussion was held with these donors to join the community and also introduce other Bombay blood group donors also to the community so that we are better prepared for any Bombay blood group request that comes our way.
Celebrations
Finally we had the
cake cutting ceremony, when all the kids present in the hall were called on stage to cut the cake. The cake cutting ceremony was followed by the National anthem. A group photo was clicked, after which the audience dispersed for snacks.
The anniversary program was overall another energy booster for the volunteers as most of our friends and well-wishers encouraged us for the work we do and promised to always stand by us and support us in our activities. After winding things up, the volunteers had a group dinner, where they shared their excitement, ideas, dreams and commitment towards the cause of a better nation, as Sankalp kicked off the 10th year of its journey.