Here’s my account of the Clean and Green presentation for WIPRO (does anyone remember that they were once Western India vegetable PROducts, and once sold vanaspati?)…

“The very nature of voluntary work is that it has to be…voluntary, so sometimes, finding the time and the effort become difficult or even impossible….so even being a part of the egroup and trying to help out occasionally is fine! (This is the kind of reasoning I shelter under, for all the voluntary work I do! :D )

Today, Anush and I went to Wipro, at one of the their campuses at Electronics City. Alas, the Wipro shuttle bus that was supposed to pick us up at Silk Board junction sped off without stopping, but we got into a nice Volvo bus and phoned back and forth, and prevented Sandhya, our contact person at Wipro, from having a proper lunch, poor thing!

Wipro has something like 20,000 employees at the Electronics City area alone, apparently…but no, not all of them turned up for the presentation :) There were about 40 or 45 people, though, which I think was the right number! I went through the slides of the presentation, and talked about what we are doing and how we are trying to do it.

I was really happy that there was a lot of questions and interaction from many members in the group after I finished speaking…and I found that many of the members of the audience were brimming with ideas, not only to partner with Clean and Green, but also about trying to make a difference in small ways on their campus itself. One gentleman, Mr Bharat Padiyar, had, indeed, come prepared with some pads that he had made out of the one-side used paper that was not collected from just one building on the campus! There was a group of people which included Rohinik Sawant, and Akshit Jhaveri, who are already doing a fair bit on trying to improve the communication skills of various lower-level staff on the campus. Another young man, Ankit Khaitan, spent a little time with us after the presentation, and said that he didn’t ask all the questions he wanted to. I was very happy to see that we were addressing individuals who are already pretty socially aware.

Sandhya had, with short notice, done a good job of mobilizing so many people to come and attend, and indeed, a larger gathering than this would have been more difficult to manage.

I am very thankful to Anush for being with me throughout…when my screen blacked out and I didn’t know what to do, he helped me out! I was in such a hurry to make sure we didn’t miss the Wipro shuttle that I prevented him from having any lunch too…I think it was Lunch Prevention Record Day for me!

We can now take this forward with Sandhya, and work out the modalities of the first cleanup with Wipro as our partners. I feel confident that we will have a good turnout. I pitched the cleanup as a kind of family outing, where, instead of just having a good time, the volunteers would be doing their bit.

I took a few pics, and they are:

http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?action=view&current=IMG_2384.jpg

http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?action=view&current=IMG_2386.jpg

http://s297.photobucket.com/albums/mm205/depontis/?action=view&current=IMG_2383.jpg

Alas, I couldn’t take a pic of myself giving the presentation, but perhaps that is just as well!

And I got a good laugh when someone asked, “Can we bring our spouses to the clean-up?” and I said, “only one per person allowed”….yes, stale, but it got a laugh..!

But as we were waiting at the Electronics City Main Gate for Sandhya to come and pick us up, I took this not-too heartening picture of the surroundings….

So..I am looking forward to the next meeting and the next cleanup, this time with Wipro.