ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2023
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. 44,000+ student leaders from 3,300+ campuses across 170+ nations applied to join the Class of 2023. 260+ campuses worldwide (just 9%) in 38 countries were selected to host 4,000+ Millennium Fellows for the Class of 2023.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT MAHEK PATEL, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2023.
Amity University Mumbai | Mumbai, India | Advancing SDG 2 & UNAI 6 | Emerging Technologist
Millennium Fellowship Project: Pet Bhar Khao
In an era marked by interconnectedness and shared responsibility, the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) stands as a global imperative. These goals, adopted by the United Nations, articulate a collective vision for a more equitable, just, and sustainable future for all.
We, Riddhima Chib, Tejasvini Ramesh and Mahek Patel, under the remarkable guidance and assistance from The Millenium Fellowship bring forward our project on SDG: II, Zero Hunger, named “Pet Bhar Khao” (Hindi term for the phrase “Eat till your stomach is full”).
Our project started with the thought of the young children who are the residents of a village dwelling next to our University area. The three of us realized that we share a common purpose of wanting to be a better Samaritan for the community. What better way than to provide food for those who are in need of it? And so began our four month journey.
Firstly, we programmed our project by adding:
Aim: To feed the children of our local community.
&
Ultimatum: To help eradicate hunger.
This was the foundation of our project wherein the basic motifs, targets and ideas were established and connected to match our common thoughts. Next was the plannings made to initiate different activities for the kids of school. Here, we connected with a group of volunteers (41 University Students), who all together formed different teams and selected their domains of interest to distribute work. They planned events such as Dancing, Drawing, Debate, Drama and Fun games like Football and Catch & Throw. A lot of these events were also educational to further the goal of sustenance of eradication of hunger.
Hence, with the gracious support from the members of the community themselves, we started with creating a logo for our project to promote public identification and recognition. Then, the media team created a social media handle for the project which majorly covered Instagram. This was done to encourage our project among the students of our University as well as other Universities and to collect donations from people who are interested to help our project. The Instagram page had daily updates on volunteer counts, funds received, different activities for the volunteers and the ones for students by volunteers, coverage of Student Responses etc.
Lastly, we all scheduled our drive by deciding a day and adding a time slot where we all can together contribute to feed these young children as well as by contacting caterers who were kind enough to help us out. Special mentions to the juice vendor who helped us out by giving us a discount and just saying that it's for the children like they are his own.
The photos of the children on the day of the event, the photos with the Village Sarpanch head (Community Leader), the pictures of the volunteers helping out, having genuine fun with the children and for the children were all captured by our volunteer team for video shooting and editing. Every single person on the field who wasn't a part of the school, helped out that day to make the day nothing short of unadulterated joy and happiness. The fulfillment that we received in feeding the children was incomparable. This is something that can never be replaced nor rewritten. We will hold this memory with us forever. A lot of our volunteers also wanted to know how to apply the following year for the Fellowship so they can be guided this fruitfully. As such, we thank Millenium Fellowship for this wonderful opportunity and hope that the three of us have, at our very least, brought to limelight of the struggle and humanity that these children possess. They aren't their struggle. They are the future.
About the Millennium Fellow
Mahek Patel is an Undergraduate Biotechnology student at Amity University Mumbai, MH, India. She is passionate about the Social Services she can purvey and is also further learning these skills professionally at the University. Through her project on Zero Hunger, Mahek aims to help as many people as possible facing food crises around her. She has also set her sight on all the basic Human Rights and their goals to meet all the necessities of people who cannot seem to have them.