My First Capsule Project!

It was the normal exciting and fun Thursday capsule and project update session at Enterprise. All the partners were going to get new capsules to work on for the next coming weeks.

The capsules were introduced and my eyes glanced upon the slide which read out 30treesin30days program. This was going to be a fundraising project to plant trees across Maharashtra. I instantly fell in love with the idea and did not bother reading about the other capsules.  At the end of the presentation, I was appointed to take up the project, it was more like I was the Chosen One.

I was briefed about the project and suddenly I felt a bit overwhelmed and at the same time felt an adrenaline rush in my body listening to the amount that we have to collect. The fundraising price was 15 K and I had no idea how I was going to raise even 1 K all by myself !

The next day was a follow-up session for the capsule. Luckily, I got Lubaina as my mentor for the project and Archee as my project partner. Breathing in some self-confidence I started the meeting. The meeting was to decide the way to fundraise 15 K for tree plantation. We got a brilliant idea of conducting a dance workshop with the help of Yukti Jethwani, one of many Enterprise India Fellowships connections. Yukti Jethwani is a choreographer who instantly agreed to help us in this amazing initiative.

Now that we had a plan, our next meetings went into executing it so that everything is successful and organized. We got into researching NGOs and other websites that will help us plant the trees successfully.

Then we decided upon all the details like the venue, date, and timing according to YJs convenience. Finally, we drafted a wonderful heart-touching message and created a poster using canva.com and started reaching all our friends and family to take part in this Green initiative.

Collecting the money was actually the easy part, the tricky part was to convince them to dance in front of the camera. After hours of persuasion and convincing I got 6 people from my side to dance in the workshop. All of us as a team got around 20 people to dance in the workshop and received around 9 K money for our plantation.

The big day finally arrived. The zoom link was forwarded to each participant and everyone started joining the meeting. We had enterprise partners helping us out too by shaking their legs on the beat. It was indeed an intense dance hour because by the end everyone was sighted out of breath. The workshop was a complete hit show.

The amount collected was then used to donate on a site called https://www.grow-trees.com/ . It was a direct transaction where we input 9 K and planted 60 trees in Thane. We also got a certificate from the NGO for carrying out such an environment-friendly capsule. The certificate made me feel very proud of myself and vulnerable because I could contribute to this world during an ongoing pandemic. I restored all my self-confidence that very moment.

I did not only just plant trees in Thane, there was more input than it seems. From completing my first fundraiser to participate in my first dance workshop. From persuading my friends to dance on camera to socializing and connect with various NGOs. The whole project gave me a rollercoaster ride filled with emotions and barriers. I have come out as a more experienced and a tree hugger person after the successful capsule. Absolutely fell in love with the green environment.