Vandana Didi, an extremely talented artist, she is one super incubator of random acts of kindness ideas and actually manages to make them happen. I have never seen her depend on anyone else in order to fulfill them. When you meet her, be rest assured that two things will definitely (and always) happen – 1. an act of kindness project will emerge in the most random conversation and 2. you will be treated to a nice home (self) cooked healthy food or may be even a BIG box of extraordinary fine chocolates.

She has the ability to see opportunity in every moment of her existence. If someone were to tag her with a new recipie, she would be the first one to cook for her Earn n Learn Kids. In a random meeting with the president of Marriot Hotel Ahmedabad, she was able to create an exchange program where, our own Seva Cafe super chefs were trained (for free) at the Marriot Hotel kitchen for 1 month! While the Marriot Hotel chefs were our Seva Cafe chefs for one night. While she was having a conversation with one of her elite friends about all the expensive saris lying around in the cupboard, she decided to come up with a Sari Library for the underprivileged community. And this list just goes on.

One of her recent projects is the Kaizen Hospital Project. This hospital has been constructed to deal with extreme emergency accident cases. While having a random conversation with the owners of this hospital she realized an opportunity to make a stranger in pain, smile. This hospital consists of more than 40 rooms, multi consulting areas, high end report labs and much more. Being an artist herself, she thought of painting beautiful murals in each room for her unknown ill family member! On talking to her you can see the excitement on her face. She had called me to witness the passion in action along with her super talented volunteer team: Lahar, Siddharth, Vinod Bhai, Rahul, Caro, Caroline and many others. As soon as i step in, i’m offered the ‘fine chocolates’ and the conversation starts with “i want to make this a city project. We can paint all the hospitals in this city and have the city come forward to offer their help :)”

She then immediately shows me a few of her hand made quotation frames and says excitedly, “you know every morning when the sweeper will come, he will take the frame from this room and shift it to the other, and so on. Imagine, for a patient, it will be so refreshing and positive to read a new positive message everyday”. When i talk to her partner in spreading smiles Lahar about her feelings on this project she says, “This is such a beautiful service. Imagine, we are painting this for someone whom we don’t even know. How beautiful no?”
 

Posted by Meghna on Dec 10, 2011 | permalink