My global work and impact journey is still in its early stages. The spirit to serve was a result of lived experiences across different Indian backdrops. My journey was shaped less by traveland more by movement across regions differing in language, cultures and traditions. I was born in a small town Faridkot in Punjab to a multilingual household a consequence of which was that I had no mother tongue, I spoke a mix of predominant Hindi and Punjabi with the Haryanvi dialect thrown in between. This multilinguistic arose as we moved from a rural village in Haryana, where my early childhood unfolded to Chandigarh and settled for the next ten years. Each move placed me in different cultural backdrops and different linguistic requirements, where my idenitity molded and adapted itself into the ideal as I learned early on that relatibility was important to not eat alone and to make friends. As a child I was not a fluent English speaker especially not when we moved to Chandigarh, I was just sic I could use some words of the language but I could not speak English even at a conversational level. This lack of knowledge was prominent and most dominant in isolating me in my new school where the medium of instruction was English, where kids conversed in English. I felt alienated in my own skin and was actively isolated by children. This time where I navigated between Hindi, Punjabi and English was not just an internalised emotional pain but rather my initiation into pluralism - one that was the main reason behind sharpening my sensitivity to voice, power and belonging. As I grew this senstivity canon balled into compassion for all those who have been excluded, isolated, ignore, discriminated aginst or quite simply have been forgotten and ignored by a society and a world to busy to pay attention to the plight of these individuals regardless whether they are humans or animals. The same ecosystems that were supposed to provide support. I learnt the harsh reality of how many suffer at the hands of both the situation as well as people who do not have a drop of mercy and compassion for those in need of help.
This awareness further deepened when I moved to Kodaiakanal International School my boarding school, where students from India and over 40 countries lived and learned together. These students were from a range of different financial backgrounds. My dual diploma introduced me to global curricula that emphasized service, ethics and morals. My academic research works helped me to extrapolate my results to the current crisis which includes but is not limited to public health, environmental responsibility and environmnetal crisis, raceism, microaggressions and much more.
Beyond academics my engagement has been grounded in service. It started as a small project in school a medical camp organised for kids from orphanages nearby, which sensitised me to disparities in access to healthcare. Regular feeding drives for local community dogs alongside medical checks has been a project closest to my heart. I also undertake donation drives of stationary, clothes and books at the local deaf and dumb schools. While many of these have been funded by my parents to some extent I have been grateful to help.
My active participation as a UN Youth Volunteer is a reflection to my commitment to serve beyond national boundaries. Writing on the other hand, is my way of generating capital as and when I can for these donation drives while also creating narratives for the youth and members of various factions of society like LGBTQ+, I aim to provide viewpoints and opinions that tarvel across cultures, foregrounding empathy and marginalised voices. Lastly, I tutor children from economically weaker sections as an act of service as I am a firm believer that education is right that everyone is entitled to regardless of sex, age, finances or anything similar that is a bound in there journey for education.
I am not here to claim that I will change everything, for that would be a false promise but I do not deny that I understand my responsibility towards giving back to my community always and wish that going forward I can be a voice for change.
My engagement