Greetings !!! We as human beings wish to be loved and cared for by our dear and near ones at times. Either it can be our parents, brother, sister, relatives or even our friends with whom we would love to spend our time with.
It is this energy that derived from their care and share help us in moving forward in our life. Imagine people deprived of these luxuries in life especially the destitute children of our society. That’s where y2ktots came in; We existed for them; to become their elder brother and sister to love, to care and to guide.
The dream about y2ktots took shape in my me in the year 2000, during one of the photographic expedition I had with my good friend Meenakshi. We were then computer engineering students in Bangalore, Karnataka, India and wanted to come up with a poster in our college for the upcoming children’s day.
We decided to capture some good photographs of children clearly depicting their innocence while they played in nearby parks and on the way to school etc. That was a life-changing decision for us. Once we were done with the photography session more than the photos of children playing in parks or school going children we ended up taking photographs of children of road construction workers, Ragpicker children and other underprivileged children doing odd jobs. The interaction with these kids, especially with the Ragpicker boy ‘MuniSwami’, first sowed the seeds of ‘y2ktots’ in me with the strong thought that as youths we should do something to help these kids. Soon with the support of like-minded friends, I formed ‘Y2ktots’ in which ‘Y2k’ meant the Year 2000 and ‘Tots’ meant the kids.
As destiny would have it we started off our charity missions in the year 2000 from Bangalore Juvenile Home which housed around 600 kids and since then till date have carried on to serve more than 5000 children across south India from various orphanages, destitute homes, and homes of needy. The initial phases of this long journey was not a cake walk because as students we had the constraints of our academics as well as of few oppositions we faced from some staff members.
I was made to flunk in practical exams and my internal marks were affected but nothing came in between my WILL to continue with activities of Y2ktots. We too faced a big challenge in continuing with our activities due to the limited availability of funds we could mobilise. As the saying goes “if your will is so strong then the whole world WILL stand with you to achieve it”. I believed in my dream called Y2ktots and the goodness it can spread; the rest is history.
Today after more than a decade of working with the underprivileged children Y2ktots foundation have imparted smiles on almost 5000 needy children, did make our presence felt across south India with almost 800 volunteers working for various causes.
Understanding the importance of education in eradicating poverty we have ensured all our projects for the underprivileged children be education-centric like Each One – Teach One and Shade To Read. We have also extended our support to the very needy of our society through a technology-oriented project called Care2Share which is conceptualized as a charity facilitation project to bridge the gap between the have’s and the have not’s.
Since our inception 24 years back till date, there have been lots of helping hands who have supported our causes. Be it, the school going child Vaishnavi who donated her entire pocket money to our Aashajyothi event or to Ameoba a bowling gaming zone who gave an additional 10% discount on the bowling game for the people who carried the raffle coupons printed by them to support one of our charity event or to big corporates like Honeywell who have been a constant supporter for our causes since the beginning and even did put forward a proposal to us to work as their CSR wing in the year 2003. I fondly remember all our supporters who have been that imaginary helping hands behind us in realizing our beautiful dreams about the children of a lesser God. Thanks to all those who have served as the driving force and whose presence and inspiration made our aspirations a reality.
Since our inception 18 years back till date, there have been lots of helping hands who have supported our causes. Be it, the school going child Vaishnavi who donated her entire pocket money to our Aashajyothi event or to Ameoba a bowling gaming zone who gave an
additional 10% discount on the bowling game for the people who carried the raffle coupons printed by them to support one of our charity event or to big corporates like Honeywell who have been a constant supporter for our causes since the beginning and even did put forward a proposal to us to work as their CSR wing in the year 2003. I fondly remember all our supporters who have been that imaginary helping hands behind us in realizing our beautiful dreams about the children of a lesser God. Thanks to all those who have served as the driving force and whose presence and inspiration made our aspirations a reality.
I believe our decade-old motto still and will carry the relevance it should. Our motto translates that there is a child ( Innocence) in everyone, be it a notorious criminal or be it the world’s most powerful person. We, the y2ktots are here to support that child ( Innocence) in you and try to bring out the goodness in you which you thought might have lost in due course of our life journey.
We have been successfully achieving this through our various projects till date. We still have a long way to go to and reach out to millions of underprivileged children with our message of love and care. Along the journey, we wish to have more volunteers who think being compassionate and being kind is one most important quality and virtue as human beings we should possess.
Once again thanks from the bottom of my heart for being that supportive pillar for our organization and help us sustain the flame of service, care and love in our minds. By doing so you have made yourself stand tall and proud for having done your part, and became that inspiration and motivation for us in bringing out the tiny tot in all of us since we still believe in our age-old motto
“ONLY INNOCENCE SURVIVES “
