Volunteering with a difference…

He is just one more face in the crowd.

What makes him unique, though, is his conviction to do what he deems fit.

Quitting a glamorous corporate job to take up volunteering as a full time work was never a tough decision for the founder of Team Everest!

He knew he had to face tougher challenges.

Putting together a band of volunteers was no mean task. He created a slogan which attracted many office goers who did not know how to utilize their spare time. He asked them to contribute one day a month, 12 days in a year for voluntary work.

As the next step he had to gather ground level information on areas in which voluntary work was an urgency. Finally he had to allocate the right task to the right person at the right time!

A strong will to give back to his village, drove Kartheeban C., the founder of Team Everest to start the outfit in 2006 when he was merely 22 years old.

With an excellent academic track record, he qualified as a metallurgical engineer and landed himself in the best of the corporate world. Through a campus recruitment drive he joined Cognizant. But just after a year, he moved to the CSR(Corporate Social Responsibility) division of Cognizant, Outreach.

His strong desire towards volunteering not only kept him going, but it also constantly attracted people from all over India. Today, Team Everest, is more than an NGO. It is a volunteering movement in the offing that is ready to revolutionise the idea of voluntary service.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to meet this modest young man and talk to him about what he liked talking about the most, volunteering!

He described one particular incident that seems to have left a lasting impact in him. When his band of volunteers were spending time with children from a local government school, teaching them to stitch buttons, they were moved by a grade 3 boy, who enthusiastically stitched the missing buttons in the uniforms of older children!

The program, called Kindness Box, was about solving local problems locally. He is working tirelessly, to collect resources to take his work further.

I appeal to like-minded people to connect with Kartheeban @https://www.teameverestindia.org 

Boys sharing their newly acquired skills from Team Everest!

Every little contribution will help Kartheeban succeed in his dream of helping the lesser blessed people realise their dreams!