Last Saturday I had a chance to be a part of the Annual Volunteers Meet of TCS Maitree. I must give a true confession here, I am with this Company for the last 21 months but only on this day I had a real picture of this social service wing. Started on Feb 23 2002, in this 6 years, this initiative of Mrs. Mala Ramadorai has gone miles deep in embracing the society in every possible way.

I must list down some of the important initiatives by Maitree for the society and for the associates of the organisation.

• Women Empowerment Programme at Wazapur to make them self dependent
• Panvel Village Devlopment Programme
• Peer Education to protect against HIV AIDS
• Sion School Initiative to train the hindi medium children in Conversational English
• Colaba Fishermen community children intiative to groom them
• Sion Junior College Initiative to train them for Entrance exams for higher studies

Other Initiatives/Clubs for associates are the following. I really don’t know how many associates are aware of this.

• Music Club
• Trek Club
• Adventure Club
• Quiz Club
• Toastmasters Club - I have already posted about this a lot.

Overall the Volunteers meet was refreshing for me it reminded me of my Rotaract Days. Surrounded by bubbling volunteers and I felt like I am back in a Rotaract event. The main objective of this annual meeting was to discuss on the various problems faced by these initiatives and to arrive at solutions to those problems. Every associate must try to contribute to Maitree, inturn he contributes for the betterment of Society and Self.