The Oasis English Press sat down with the coordinator of National Service Scheme (NSS), Mahin Patel, to understand the work going into what NSS is doing for the fest.  

Mahin shared that NSS is organising “Shop For a Smile” during the fest — where they sell handcrafted products produced by NGOs. He added that the revenue generated is distributed to the NGO after the fest. The NGOs they are collaborating with this year include World Wildlife Fund (WWF) as well as local ones from Delhi and Jaipur.

He proceeded to explain the preparatory flow followed by the club. He said they started by preparing a database of the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) nearby. This was followed by contacting the NGOs and getting the catalogue of their products. Mahin mentioned that they also planned on organising a small game around their stalls in order to attract crowds via the prize money coupon. 

Mahin shared that the hardest part was to gain the trust of the NGOs and assure them of their genuine intentions. ‘Since these products are not bought, rather, the revenue is returned to the NGOs after the fest, it gets challenging for small NGOs to partake as they would not survive if their revenue is returned too late,’ he explained.  

Mahin mentioned that the club has made tremendous progress this year, collaborating with four local NGOs as compared to two in the previous year. He believed that organising such events would lead to further collaboration with bigger NGOs in the future.

Talking about his experience as the coordinator, he commented that the job of setting up the event is not as tedious as it sounds, since they have prior experience in organising similar events in BOSM. He concluded by saying, ‘The only thing different now is instead of just pitching the ideas to seniors and them getting rejected, I now understand why a certain idea might sound good in theory but not so much in practicality.’