A Week's Tale #1: Feb 4 - 10, 2024

About two weeks back I started my engagement with #AlumniVoice of Teach For India (TFI), a community of practice to share the voice and stories of the alumnx of TFI. The week that went by was an amazing week filled with a lot of work. It's amazing how building and learning at Y-Ultimate gives a plethora of life experiences and roller coaster rides. These moments left me wondering what I should write about and what the perfect post would be. However, it's time to be imperfect and messy. So a summary (long read) of the events and learnings of the week that went by is drafted below. What started as a post with 5 bullet points evolved into an article as it was quite a happening week. If you would like to get a glimpse of 10 moments that stood out to me at the end of the week, read along

1. On the 6th, experienced Maitrayana Charity Foundation 's Netball tournament in Delhi. I got a chance to spend time with Kalyani Subramanyam , Vivek Gaur , Radha Mishra , and the team to understand their model and scale. The way Maitrayana keeps safeguarding children at the center was eye-opening. As soon as I reached the venue, one of the staff members briefed me how I could not click pictures and interact with the children at the event. Something for us to learn and improve at Y-Ultimate. Another thing that stood out for me was how, the partnerships they have built with their venue, food, and apparel vendors for over so many 10 years were aspirational.
2. As part of the #AlumniVoice track, I had a coaching call with Sidika Sehgal where she created a candid space to discuss the discomfort in writing for me. How can I be authentic enough, how does one navigate dissonance in virtual and real versions of oneself? Something I took away from the conversation was - "Authentic doesn't mean no filter". However, I missed the online learning space around writing Op-Ed due to schedule conflicts. I look forward to watching the recording and giving a shot at writing an Op-Ed in the future.
3. I had the privilege to attend a dinner by Sports and Society Accelerator to celebrate the launch of 'Making Sport Work' coffee table book in partnership with The Better India . The space was lovely to meet people from various sectors of sports, sports development, sports for development, and technology in sport. Truly grateful to have had an opportunity to be part of the space to know more people and the incredible work they are doing in their unique ways. Check out SportVot , Naandi Foundation , Pro Sport Development and Umoya Sports .
4. Thursday we at Y-Ultimate conducted a hat tournament for 160+ kids from Vidya & Child we work with at Noida. A hat tournament is a tournament where one registers as an individual and teams are randomly assigned to play in a tournament. With the consultation of the coaches who work with the children regularly, we handpicked the teams by bringing together children from different classrooms, ages, and genders. This format gave young people a unique platform to collaborate, learn from each other, and overcome difficulties - critical life skills for all of us to develop. Thanks to the team of coaches, peer leaders of our community program, and volunteers who were running the event, I was able to spend my time exploring old and new partnerships for the upcoming year through calls on the side.
5. We received our direct monetary CSR donation from Air Charter Service ! ACS’ support and belief in our mission have given us fresh fuel to continue our flight! This support comes at a crucial time when 8 of the young people in our program are in the last 35 athletes that are shortlisted to represent India at the World Flying Disc Federation 's World Ultimate Championship 2024 in Gold Coast, Australia later this year. As the selected athletes are directed to self-fund by the Indian Association, we have to raise a hefty money to ensure the athletes who get selected do get a chance to represent themselves at the epitome of ultimate frisbee competition in the world irrespective of the situation they come from!
6. We debriefed on our tournament organisation mainly on our Friday morning team call. However, at the same time, one of our male staff who was attending our team call after dropping another female staff at her women’s college in Delhi was labeled as a phone snatcher by a police officer. He was first asked to prove the ownership and registration of the bike he was leaning on and attending the team meeting. After seeing all the documents of the vehicle were in place, his bike got impounded for not having a clear number plate. It took a day for him to track down the real location of the bike and it is still in police custody. This situation made me feel helpless but also filled with rage. Grateful to friends who work in the legal space to help navigate this moment. What was the strangest reason for your colleague to drop off a team call?
7. Later that afternoon, I got a chance to speak with amazing folks at Sattva Consulting and India Partner Network (IPN) to understand CSR and the fund utilization guidelines better. The clarity, patience, and knowledge the team had was truly commendable. I had attended an IPN webinar earlier and raised a question in the Q&A. Minu Sagar offered to connect after the webinar to solve the question I raised. After sharing a brief of what I wanted to advise on, she roped in other relevant and experienced folks to also join in to help a young organization like us out. Seeing the resources on the IPN platform and the NGO Profile creation features, left me in awe! If you are planning to build a non-profit or working at a non-profit, this is one resource you should undoubtedly check out - https://indiapartnernetwork.org
8. Friday evening, I got a chance to meet Suchita Sharma from PwC and share our work at Y-Ultimate. I first met her at an ILSS - India Leaders for Social Sector peed networking session and she was kind enough to give me time to have a chat. Along with a great chai, bhel, and bun maska at Chaayos, she gifted me a lot of questions and insights. She shared about organizations that I can learn from that I hadn't even known existed. Her questions pointed towards making a deeper impact and actually empowering the beneficiaries to thrive in their respective lives. She shared how we can plan to be CSR-ready for the years to come and Q4 is definitely the time to get the ball rolling. Understanding how PWC’s CSR efforts over the years have evolved to a multi-pronged approach of funding, volunteering, and consulting is very holistic and commendable.
9. One evening I was a bit overwhelmed with all the tasks, commitments, and opportunities lined up ahead. I stayed up that night to transfer the brain dump onto our whiteboard. It started in an orderly manner with various heads and colour coding. Soon, it became a battlefield massacre with no colour schemes and thoughts all over the place. I went back to bed, stayed awake and kept noting things I missed on the whiteboard on my notepad and the list kept going on. The next day, I shared this situation with one of my mentors, and his response changed my outlook on it. His response when I explained my situation was, “This is Great. You at least know what you have to do.“ This perspective helped me to move to action with the help of teammates to get working on things one by one and we are making headway.
10. I compromised on my physical well-being this week by not sticking to my runs, or workout plans. I skipped the weekend practices with GK MAD that I usually look forward to eagerly being a part of every week. This week, work and other priorities trumped over the weekend practice. Maybe the week ahead would be different from this one.

Actually, the week ahead will definitely be very different launching myself into a set of unknowns. Looking forward to having fun navigating the uncertain. In between all this, having moments to break down, being taken care of and loved, celebrating a friend's birthday, and connecting with friends I hadn't been in touch with made life more beautiful.