The beginning and ground work

Kalimpong 2014 started all the way back in May 2013, at a steering team meeting of EKIN India

where people were encouraged to present ideas for social work. Ruben, Renu and Javier quickly got in contact with a few NGOs and worked out a few basic ideas which were sent to the NER committee.

Out of these initial ideas, the Kalimpong project was chosen, and then Paula from Trebeki, along with some help from Javier Morales who was in contact with GFF, presented a detailed proposal to the NER committee.

NER approved the Kalimpong project in August. Unfortunately, people's schedules were very hectic at that time and not much could be done until November when Ruben found a way to make it start moving. Renu volunteered that month to be the coordinator of the project, and quickly things started flowing: the project was announced, volunteers raised their hand, 10 were selected, and Akanksha among them was asked to be their coordinator. Soon after, many details of the project began to be looked into more detail in coordination with Saom from GFF and slowly many things went on progressing.

At the same time, there were many formalities to be completed and hurdles to be overcome in regards to this. Due to this, our project got delayed by a couple of months, but in the end, with a lot of hard work, communication and many inputs from people like Virginia, Rukmani, Ibon, Lalitha, Renu and Juanje, a solution was found out, and finally all formalities were fulfilled to work out the project with EDI and GFF. It was great to see the team work from many people of NER group from different companies: Trebeki, AMPO and EKIN.

At the beginning of May somebody had to travel to Kalimpong to explore the ground and agree on final details with the GFF volunteers with regards to the work to be done and also preparing the trip of the EKIN volunteers. During the month, the GFF and EDI teams took care of purchases and logistics for the items being donated. And by the end of May, everything was settled with regards to the purchases, the work to be carried out, and the accommodation and traveling of the EKIN team. On 1st June, they landed in Kalimpong and started their great work on the projects and handing out the donations from NER.