 Newsletter
September - December '10
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Dear Mayank,
Toybank wishes you a Happy 2011 !
We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential.
- Ellen Goodman
2010 has been a year of celebrations and wonderful experiences for us all at Toybank. It was a year for many 'first times'! We grew as a team, inducted many new volunteers, participated in 'Melas', set up toy libraries, planned out our Rural Toybank project and also had a 100 volunteers support us at the Mumbai Marathon 2011!
Toybank has reached out to 11,000 kids so far.
Major Highlights:
- Toybank Bombay set up its first official Toy Library in a Government School in October 2010
- The episode of 'Slum Dog Secret Millionaire' that was aired on UK's national television early this year was telecasted in Australia in September 2010
- Toybankers in UK went on air on Asian Star Radio in November 2010
- Toybank Delhi sent across toys to tribal children in Jharkhand with the help of Centre for Transforming India (CFTI), Delhi
- Through the Joy of Giving Week in September, Toybank raised over 500 toys
- Toybank Bombay and AIESEC partnered this year to reach out to over 1000 kids during the Children's Day week in Nov 2010
- Toybank Bangalore has partnered with Rentoys to collect toys for Toybank
- Our founder was invited to give a talk on the significance of play at the TEDx Gateway event held at ITC Grand Central, Mumbai on 30th of October.
- The Marathon event at Toybank was covered by DNA newspaper
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September to December 2010 quick pulses:
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Bombay: 2755 happy children in Bombay from 12 different NGOs!!
- Post the birthday celebrations of Toybank in August, Toybank Bombay and Deutsche Bank got together to reach out to kids from Powai centre of Mumbai Mobile Crèches. This was a major event held on September 8th with a dozen Deutsche Bank employees working in full force to reach out to over 100 kids.
- On October 9th Inner Wheel Club of Borivali and Toybank have joined hands to create a wonderful Toy Library at the Vidya Vikas High School, a Government School in Borivali. 100 educational and fun board games have been donated to the school by us. This library is fully managed by Toybankers and toys will be replenished every quarter.
- Toybankers visited the Mumbai Mobile Creches centre in Malad on the 11th of October, and distributed toys to 50 children.
- On October 23rd Toybank and Ingersoll Rand tied up to conduct a massive toy raising event. The toys from this event were distributed to 100 kids from Parivartan Shikshan Sanstha, Wadala. We have also set up a play center at this NGO!
- November as always is the most exciting month for Toybank! This time we tied up with various college students who are members of AIESEC and together we managed to raise over 1000 toys for children from a dozen different NGOs under the NGO, AMRAE (a nodal organization of UNICEF). We touched the lives of over 1000 children from these events.
- Perhaps the most interesting event we had this quarter was the Children's Day Mela with Don Bosco. Toybank set up a stall here where street children from various NGOs across Bombay came to our stall and played with lots of games. Toybankers patiently sat and explained each game to them and together they really had a blast!
- Toybank also participated in the Indo German Festival on Dec 4th-5th. We interacted with many potential toy donors and children. Intelligent board games were played and kids happily took with them ‘I am a Toybanker' badges for each game they played!
- Toybank and Mastek teamed up to distribute toys to 35 children from Mumbai Mobile Creches centre in Airoli. On the 7th of Dec employees of Mastek and Toybankers wrapped the toys and set out to visit the children.
Pune: 385 kids and 1 rocking toy library!
- On 23rd of October, Toybankers in Pune set out to distribute toys to around 240 children from 2 schools in Pune- Dr. Ambedkar School and Mahadji Shinde School!
- Toybank Pune set up its first Toy Library in Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital in their children's ward on 18th of September. More than 55 kids benefitted from this. This is an on-going project for Toybank!
- Unconditional corporate support came from Tieto and IBM in Pune!
Bhutan:
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Bangalore: 360 kids and 3 amazing toy libraries!
- Toybank Bangalore organized a series of events all through the last quarter of 2010. Toys were distributed to 80 kids from the Excalibur Foundation.
- Toybank Bangalore set up 3 toy libraries at: Centre for Child Development and Disabilities, St. Martha's Hospital and Manipal Hospital.
- The latest update being that Toybank in Bangalore has tied up with Rentoys which is an exclusive online toy library that provides branded toys on rent to kids less than 6 years. Rentoys will now help us collect toys through their customer database for all of Toybank's upcoming distribution events!
Delhi: 225 kids and sending toys to tribal kids in Jharkhand!
- Even though Toybank Delhi started its operations only in June 2010, it has already had 3 major events and has been non-stop conducting toy collection drives across IBM, Nokia Siemens Networks, Genpact and ZEE Network, Noida.
- On 26th September volunteers got together to distribute toys to 50 kids from Pankhudi Foundation. This was followed by another event with New Life Aanganwadi and their 35 kids on 23rd October.
- IBM and Toybank Delhi organized a massive toy collection drive in all IBM offices and 140 of these toys were given to Center for Transforming India. These toys will be distributed to tribal children from Jharkhand (Mokama and Ranchi) in January 2011!
- Pratham Books India donated 150 copies of their book 'Badi Lal Ball' to Toybank and some of these books were given to children from Pankhudi Foundation.
United Kingdom:
- Ever since Toybank UK kick-started its operations in May 2010 so much has happened! Post the UK's Channel 4 telecasting 'The Slum Dog Secret Millionaire' in early Jan 2010, Australia's National television telecast the same show and we were flooded with mails from so many Australians!
- Swinton Primary School in Glasgow donated to Toybank! Ms. Claire Rodger a school teacher from this school and her wonderful students worked hard to raise money for Toybank.
- Privillage.org a portal based out of UK has featured Toybank where one can donate £10 to an affiliate charity of their choice to help buy toys and days out for children who are less privileged.
- A wonderful dinner was organized by our dear volunteer Rashmi in UK, where people got to enjoy a delicious meal and a fun evening to raise funds for Toybank at Baylis House!
- Toybank in UK goes on air on Asian Star Radio. Shruthi, a Toybank UK core committee member who lives in Slough went along with Rashmi on 11th of Nov to speak on behalf of Toybank.
- Toy collection drive at Citrix Systems UK Ltd.
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Thank you:
An HUGE thank you to all of you! Your continuous support only makes us want to work harder than ever before!
- Purab Kohli for sharing the importance of 'implementing', of 'doing' and living a life full of purpose with all the Toybanker youth through Toybank’s events
- Mr. Gopakumar of Navgati, Bangalore. Navgati's office helped us store and wrap toys sent by Disney
- K Raheja Group, Marico Industries and Ingersoll Rand and Wadia School for raising toys through the Joy of Giving Week
- Deutsche Bank for supporting us by being our first major corporate funder this year! Not only did they fund us but also volunteered with Toybank to conduct a massive toy collection drive!
- Volunteer employees of Ingersoll Rand, Mastek, IBM Pune and NCR, Genpact
- Hopping Bunnies Committee (Michaela & Roshika) and Board Games Bash Committee for donating brand new toys to Toybank
- Students, teachers and all those involved in the generous contribution made by Swinton Primary school, Glasgow, UK
- Dannielle Van Leeuwen from Australia for bringing 40 kgs of awesome toys all the way from Australia for Toybank
- Singapore Airlines for helping Dannielle transfer the toys without any extra cost
- Ritu from Little Oaks for helping Toybank set up its stall at the Garodia Mela
- Kethki and everyone from the Indo German Chamber of Commerce for providing Toybank a fantastic platform to showcase our work at the Indo German Festival
- Vivek Asrani, Purab Kohli, Jiby Thomas, Nimesh Shah, Vinay Somani, Seema Sharma, Nathan Coll, Rashmi Kharbanda, Sangeeta Kapila and Pooja Das not only for funding Toybank but for always being there, silently supporting us at every stage
- ToolBox- Shiana Makhija, Shirin Mehta and Ajay Mathrani for spending hours with Toybank to plan the Rural project which is scheduled to start off in April 2011
- Farheen and all the toy donors from 'The Club', Bombay for raising toys all through Christmas
- Volunteers from St.Xaviers 'Social Service League'
- Special Thanks to Veena Nagpal, Premila Martis, Ritu from Oak School, Ajesh Shah and the entire from Board Game Bash for donating outstanding toys
And Lastly...
- Nathan Hugh Coll from England for training hard for the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon which he ran for Toybank this year!!! 42 kms of sheer commitment and passion for the cause, has only inspired us all at Toybank to work harder than ever before!
- Volunteers Haneeta, Siddharth Bose and Rachna for giving endless hours to Toybank. We are so grateful for your unconditional support!
- Toybanker Dr. Kothawala is declared as the writer for this quarter! She had a touching experience while giving away toys to kids from her NGO, PATH and you can read about it here!
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