Before Bhumi - A Self-sustainable practice and who I learnt it from

While the weekly classes continued, we continued to meet every month. Initially, our meetings used to be either the Gandhi Mandapam park or on the lawn at the entrance of IIT Madras. This was while Manish, Gyan and others used to host the meetings

 

As more volunteers who were not from IIT joined us, we started meeting primarily at the Gandhi Mandapam park, once in a while at the Guindy Children's park and stopped having meetings at IIT. While at the Children's park we had stone benches to sit and was suitable for small groups, we used to sit on the floor in a large circle on the lawns of Gandhi Mandapam park.

 

Meetings would usually be national level updates about BM, some initiatives a few of us were doing. We would then review the projects and discuss any new ideas. One practice which helped us then was every volunteer who was a student contributing Rs.1/day i.e. Rs.30-50 per month and every working professional contributing Rs.5/day i.e. Rs.150 per month. We followed this diligently, during those times it was strongly ingrained culturally. Volunteers who sometimes missed meetings would always pay in for the missed months. This culture helped us be largely self-sustained financially until 2009.

 

I'm unsure if this was a BM wide process, but I learnt this from Gyan. What I learnt from him, I still believe. You do the work, the money will automatically follow.

 

Do you agree?

 

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