Congratulations to OSNE Youth team in reaching this milestone of finalizing the OSA Impact project. In 2015 December, an idea that started during a discussion with Nityananda babu (Mishra) on how to involve OSA youth in various OSA social programs and, in the process, build relationship among our youth, has reached such a milestone. I wanted to thank all the people involved during last 2 yrs. Besides Abhisek Panigrahi and Amisha Paul from the OSNE Yotuh group, I would like to thank Saloni Mahapatra, Megha Panigrahi, Toshit Panigrahi and Roshni Sahoo who have been part of the team in launching OSA Impact program and our friends Alok Maillik and Manorama Choudhury for providing them initial guidance in this effort. In addition, Arun Mohanty (past OSNE president) and Soumya Mohanty (current OSNE President), Ashok Panigrahi and Malaya Paul have helped as part of the advisory committee of this group.
OSA Impact was formally launched during 2016 Convention. Later, OSNE Youth Group had proposed to have a separate non-profit organization as a subsidiary under OSA to carry out to-be-determined social projects in Odisha. After discussion with the team, it was agreed we will run this as a project under OSNE with a separate bank account and youth team will have independence to select the projects. Also, the advisory committee suggested keeping the initial fundraising goal modest ($3-$5K) and find a comparable
Nishikant Sahoo as he had some interaction with him during 2015 Convention. Finally, with the help of many of these adult volunteers, OSNE youth team organized a fundraiser in Feb 2017 with partial financial support from OSA and raised $4K+.
It took some time for the Youth Team to come up with the modalities to use the funds in a project. Though there were some initial proposals that didn’t materialize during our tenure, I am glad that OSNE Youth team has found this project to be worthwhile and funds have been deployed for a good purpose.
As we await the (successful) results of this effort, I hope youth members from other chapters will either join this group or start something similar on their own. My suggestion would be to continue with the collaboration among team members to help foster a lasting friendship and provide impetus for future projects. Once again I thank everyone involved in this effort.
-Sushant Satpathy