Making a difference by dropping indifference

“The opposite of a hero is not a villain, it’s a bystander.” When I look at this quote by Matt Langdon of the Hero Construction Company, I always stop to think. It makes me question myself and wonder if I have taken a stand on the issues I hear about every day, community, sustainability, climate change and so many others. I understand that the opposite of heroism is not taking action. The truth is that actions speak far louder than words and the sad fact is that a lot of people choose not to take action and let opportunities to help pass them by. 

Sometimes, even with the best of intentions, not many of us translate good intentions into service for the community for many reasons - sheer laziness, lack of knowing what to do, fear of being alone or even because we can’t find a big enough task for our big intentions. But, no action is too small. As my grandmother says, “you do what you can”. 

Surely if enough of us do what we can, together there will be a big enough change. 

For this reason, I am trying to practise what I preach and help a small library in Dehradun focused on helping students who don’t have access to books and the materials required for studying. I am spending a week here in my summer holidays. Hopefully, documenting my experience through this blog post will act as encouragement for all of us to do more in the future.

The National Association for Parents and Students Rights (NAPSR) book bank is helping underprivileged students who are unable to access the material required for school or even college. They do this by giving these students a location to find the books and study material needed. In my time in Dehradun, I am attempting to aid this organisation by helping customers and organising the books on the shelves. These simple actions don’t take much effort, however, they still do good for the book bank. I learnt about taking responsibility, meeting the founders made me understand that you don’t need huge resources to set up a charitable organisation - the desire to make a difference and a determination to help leads to many doors being opened.

In the future I am hoping to organise book drives in school and donate lots of my own books to the small library. While these actions which I am taking are merely drops in an ocean, I still believe that I am making a difference. After all, an ocean is made up of many drops.

There is so much good that can be done by just looking for organisations which are working for the community and simply helping them with their work. A major inspiration for me is my grandmother who works with a ladies club to help organise donations of clothing, time and other resources to different NGOs and underprivileged schools in Dehradun, which helps those in need. Seeing her take these actions and witnessing the joy it gives her is wonderful. It helps me remember that age is just a number, and it reminds me to keep trying to do good for my community.

So, I urge anyone reading this blog post to take action. Life isn’t fair, unfortunately that is a fact that must be accepted. However, for all those people who are lucky enough to be in a position to help, why not try to make life a little bit fairer for those who aren’t as privileged. Working at the book bank is a small step but it has taught me a lot about why I should do more to help those who need it and given me some ideas about how I could do it. It has been a great experience and I look forward to doing more work like it in the future. I hope that anyone reading this blog post takes action. While words without action to back them are meaningless, I hope that my blog post can act as inspiration for those who read it to go and help their community. Even simple actions can make a difference to those who need help.