[Originally Posted by Ria Sakrane]

I started ACraneADay with the simple idea of putting up funny/pretty pictures of cranes up everyday. After generating a fair following and with quitting my job on the cards I, along with a colleague of mine Divya, decided to initiate the Good Crane Weekend.

We decided that an effective way to get the cranes to people would be through restaurants as people are sitting, more relaxed and will have a moment to think. We set up meetings to pitch the idea to the restaurants, and over the course of the meetings we noticed a similar trend of reactions- “so you will give us the cranes with the deeds and a little instruction card and all we need to do is hand them out?” Some even said “what is in this for you? Why are you doing this?”. It was unfathomable to them that this idea was a simple initiative to get the people of Mumbai to do good deeds over the weekend, without there being an ulterior motive for me or Divya. The cranes were distributed with the bill after the meal, of if the restaurant preferred we gave them a fish bowl with cranes along with a large sign with instructions on the initiative.

After doing the deed, keeping with the original idea of ACraneADay we asked for them to take a creative picture of the crane and then pass the crane on (Pay it forward). The time leading up to the weekend was so exciting with crane workshops, as we wanted people to even wonder about who made the crane that they received that weekend- from waiters at restaurants to tour guides at Reality Tours and Travels, and community members who wanted to help- we really couldn’t have reached our goal of 3000 cranes without them.

The good deeds that we included were simple and Mumbai specific- nothing as extreme as "go volunteer all day." it involved getting to the root of the problem which we felt was that the citizens of Mumbai were not aware of the people around them and sometimes did not have time to introspect. With that assumption of unawareness, how were the citizens going to give back to society?
Hence we decided to start from the grassroots level of making them aware of those around them "call your waiter by their first name" "greet your watchman" "give water to a worker" "do your own dishes today" "tell your house-help you appreciate them serving you" "figure out a cause you are passionate about."
With simple deeds like these we tried to sensitise people hoping that they would realise how simple it is to do these deeds and that this would snowball into other avenues of their lives, making them more sensitive and empathetic.

That's my story! I am trying to revive ACraneADay and then maybe carry out another such initiative again :) I hope this inspired you to start something like this in your city too! Here’s the link to the video that will give you an overview of the Good Crane Weekend: http://vimeo.com/69301125#at=2

 
The Good Crane Weekend from Rhea Kewalramani on Vimeo.

Posted by Ria Sakrane on Oct 17, 2014 | permalink