ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2022
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. Over 31,000 young leaders on 2,400+ campuses across 140+ nations applied to join the Class of 2022. 200+ campuses worldwide (just 8%) were selected to host the 3,000+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT NEHA BIMAL, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2022.
Rajagiri School of Engineering & Technology | Kochi, India | Advancing SDG 4 & UNAI 3
" " As an individual who stands firm in the belief that a kind gesture can heal a wound that only compassion can heal, I seek to utilize the best of my knowledge and skills that I've gained over the years to bring an impact on society. Each one of us has a purpose in life that will lead us to help and serve one another. Being a Millennium Fellow will not only help me inspire a wider audience but shall also amplify my leadership and teamwork skills which I believe are vital for the progress of any project that has been taken upon by any enthusiast. I eagerly look forward to being a part of this global community of endeavors that are also focused on the development of the SDGs and hopefully be able to bring about a change. " "
Millennium Fellowship Project: ABHIGYAAN
What’s the life of a child in an orphanage in India like? The child has limited access to resources like food and clothing. He/She has access to education till the age of 14. And then at the age of 18, they are forced to leave their only home to brave the streets.
Tough life? Yes. But what is one thing that can make them headstrong and help them face the challenges of life?
It is developing into a strong personality who has a clear idea of the different aspects of reality and knows how to navigate them. This can only be achieved by being constantly exposed to new ideas and learning about the real world outside.
The main problem that our project tries to address is this: How can we equip the orphans in an orphanage with this sort of knowledge?
We truly believe the best way to tackle this challenge is by giving them access to a wide collection of books. It is the best way for them to escape from their reality and be taken to another person’s story and to live and learn from the characters.
So our project ‘ABHIGYAAN’ (Source of Knowledge in Hindi) aims at collecting books from various schools and distributing them to various orphanages in our district. We plan to host an interschool book drive contest to gamify this process so that the school with the maximum number of books collected will be declared a winner. The collected books will then be transported to various orphanages around our district.
We have divided our project into various milestones. Our initial step is to identify all the orphanages in our district that are deprived of a good collection of books. This might involve going to the orphanages and meeting the authorities. Next, we shall approach one school that is willing to test out our idea. We shall collect the books from the students of the school, transport them, store them, sort them and then distribute them to orphanages based on the need.
Using the experience that we gained from this smaller drive, we plan to go large-scale, namely the interschool contest. But before that, we intend to meet with companies and NGOs that may be interested in sponsoring the campaign and transport costs. Next, we plan to get as many schools as possible in our district to sign up for the contest. The contest will then run for 1 week and a leaderboard will be constantly updated. We also plan to design a scoring sheet that awards points if a minimum number of books in a particular genre is obtained.
The top 3 schools with the maximum number of books will be recognized and declared winners. The books will then be transported and stored in our college, where we will sort them and distribute them to various orphanages that we had previously identified, thus marking our last milestone.
The stories and knowledge gained by one child will often be shared with the rest of the children and this might create a rippling effect. We truly believe the impact created by this initiative is something that will change the lives of the orphans.
About the Millennium Fellow
Neha Bimal is a passionate and enthusiastic engineering student at Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology. Coming from India, she has been able to experience diversity at its finest. Being a computer science student and enthusiast, she is well aware of the widespread impact that one could make with the help of technology. This along with her deep desire to give back to society had provided her with the required incentive that provoked her to take up a project that would contribute to the development of the United Nations' Sustainable Goals. Throughout the years, she has proven her efficacy by taking part in various projects and activities that allowed her to display her exemplary leadership and teamwork qualities. She strongly believes that faith as small as the size of a seed can pave the way to a whole arena of possibilities and opportunities that could help one get to their goal. Neha has instilled this seed within herself and is on her mission to watch it grow and also be able to witness and learn from others all around the globe as they embark on journeys unique yet similar to that of hers.
