My dear friends,
Five years is a major milestone in the progress of any initiative. And for BRIDGE it is a time to look back and look up in gratitude for the positive difference we have been able to make and thank God for the grace to stay the course. To tell you honestly, I am indeed overwhelmed by the way this journey has taken shape, the excitement of co-travellers and the happiness it brings to all of us for the impact we have been making since the day we started this journey on 1 August 2016.
Together we have become an anchor for over 150 families across various states succeeding in no small measure to fill their emotional, financial and psychological vacuum. Of course this takes a lot of our time and patience and often leads to considerable emotional drain. After five years, I am happy to say that the pain has been worth it.
As I have said in the past, as a policy, BRIDGE does not aim to reach out to too many people. Our focus is to identify the genuine needy, get involved and travel with them on their journey to self-reliance. So the focus is not how many families we help, but how well we help. It’s easy to sanction some money to the needy and move on. But ‘the BRIDGE Way’ is different. We get involved with our families, stay in touch, counsel them when required, advise children on choosing the right course/career, share their happiness and sorrows, lend them an ear and thus lead them out of troubled waters. I salute our Partners and Associates for carrying out these duties with so much dedication. While not all our volunteers can spare time to get involved directly with families, many of them make up for it by supporting us with their funds. Take a bow dear friends for the positive difference you have made through BRIDGE!
Again as a policy, I want BRIDGE to be transparent about every penny earned and used. So as we do every year, I present below our financials in brief (April 2020 to March 2021). Please note, many of our individual contributors have been helping other causes which I know and am proud of. I am mentioning here only their contributions to BRIDGE.
Total money received (companies and individuals): Rs 33,44,402.00
Contributions from Companies: Rs 19,12,600.00
Company-wise Breakup:
- Megha Engineering & Infra Ltd… Rs 9,82,500.00
- ACT………………………………………. Rs 5,00,000.00
- Wonderbiz…………………………….. Rs 4,00,100.00
- Travel Bridge…………………………. Rs 30,000.00
Contributions from Individuals: Rs 14,31,802.00
Individual-wise breakup:
- TJS George……………………….. Rs 5,00,000.00
- Shibu Joseph……………………… Rs 4,50,000.00
- Shaji Thomas……………………… Rs 1,25,000.00
- Geetanjali…………………………… Rs 92,500.00
- Jose Paul……………………………. Rs 48,000.00
- Anitha Francis……………………… Rs 34,000.00
- Prakash Pillai………………………. Rs 30,001.00
- Raju Pullan………………………….. Rs 26,000.00
- Austin Scaria……………………….. Rs 25,000.00
- Rakesh Bedi………………………… Rs 25,000.00
- James CC……………………………. Rs 12,000.00
- Archana………………………………. Rs 12,000.00
- Mandar Vaidya……………………… Rs 10,000.00
- Other smaller contributions…….. Rs 42,301.00
Total outgo……………………………. Rs 27,43,350.00
Breakup:
- Livelihood outgo……………………….Rs 13,98,000.00
- Education aid………………………….. Rs 6,20,350.00
- Medical aid…………………………….. Rs 4,09,000.00
- One-time outgo……………………….. Rs 3,16,000.00(one-time outgo includes wedding help, corona help, house/bathroom repair work, etc)
As you may have noticed, there has been a significant jump in the contributions that we have received and the contributions we have made to our beneficiaries in 2020-21 over the previous year. This is another sign that BRIDGE has been making significant strides on its journey.
The Road Ahead
One of the discussion points during an interaction with our team this year was about letting our benefactors directly sponsor families/students. I am of the opinion that we can let our donors directly sponsor a family or a student who qualifies for aid after BRIDGE does its due diligence. This way individual donors can directly interact with the affected families and take care of them not just through funds, but being a solace to them by offering emotional support as well. This way we can avoid routing the funds through the BRIDGE account.
So, those of you who would like to interact and donate directly to families, I can recommend some of our beneficiary families. But please make sure that you follow the BRIDGE philosophy that is enshrined in the following principles:
- The privacy of our beneficiary families will have to be steadfastly protected. Photographs of beneficiary families are a strict no no. In case you take pictures with them, it has to be with their consent and only if you can ensure that you won’t post them anywhere like FB, Instagram or any such medium.
- Call the family at least once a month while also attending to their calls and listening to them with patience.
- Never be patronising when you speak to them. Never make them feel that you are some rich person who gives them money and support out of your financial superiority. Make them feel that we are also like them except that we are just fortunate not to have lost our breadwinner.
- Empathise and make them feel that we are all in it together.
- Explore ways to raise money on their own or at least make sure that they also part-fund their expenses. Your ultimate aim is to make them stand on their own feet.
So friends, on the occasion of our 5th birthday and the beginning of the sixth year, let me extend my heartfelt gratitude to each of you for your support, encouragement and love extended from behind the scenes. If it were not for you, BRIDGE would not have been able to walk the talk so long. Let’s rededicate on this SAMARPAN 2021 day and may the Almighty bless our larger BRIDGE family.
Take care
Shibu