A journey to remember - Shilpa Das Gupta

Life moves on in its regular course. We get caught up in our social commitments, responsibilities and sometimes we forget to reflect. However, working as a volunteer for Better Life Vietnam (BLV), a Vietnamese social enterprise with a focus on education, was one such experience that allowed me to reflect.

   

Being a media and communications professional, I have weathered the demanding environment of the media industry. For a very long time, I have felt the need to use my skills for a bigger and better reason. The purpose that adds value to my life and most importantly to the lives of other people. I was unsure about how to find this until I discovered that I could become a UN Volunteer and help organization that works in this area. That’s how my journey began with BLV, global organizations who are working for social and economic upliftment. I am personally inclined toward educational causes and wanted to be involved with an which aims to counter issues affecting access to education in East Asia. 

With BLV, I got the opportunity to serve in multiple ways. My first significant work was the making of a promotional video for the community tours organized by Tours for Books (TFB), our tourism social enterprise. I am glad everyone liked it and we could use it on several platforms to promote the TFB tours.

I actively helped the Tours For Books marketing team set up a creative writing team, which included bloggers, social media writers and editors. It was a joy world. During this course, I wrote the first TFB blog post. Now we have a team to involve more like-minded young people in this journey of building a better of bloggers who are doing a terrific job in creating a strategic content blog “Travel for happiness, regularly. It feels special knowing that I wrote the first blog post for an organisation that became so close to my heart in just a few months. I named the travel for a cause – Tours for Books, a unique initiative”. I hope to see it published soon.   

I am glad that I could help the Coeurs De Papier (CDP) marketing team too. The CDP online shops quilling cards to sell online, which in turn raises money for BLV. It was an exciting venture when I spoke to the shop operations manager of the National Gallery of Art in through the Gallery store. This is one of the key museums of European and Washington D.C, for a prospective partner to promote and sell the CDP products American sculpture and artworks and holds collections by some of the greatest of our samples and pictures of our artists and she assured me to put in touch artists of all time, ranging from the Middle Ages to present times. I had a positive discussion about our CDP quilled artwork products. I showed her some with the right people. I deeply wish that a positive collaboration can take any sort of help in this regard.

 

Working closely with the TFB and CDP marketing teams was always fun and happening. I have helped in ideating new social media campaigns, writing catchy taglines, works with my fellow volunteers, worked on developing innovative promotional creating comprehensive lists of relevant hashtags, shared relevant published feel content!

The most challenging learning experience I have had was leading the Social Media Promotions team. Although I have led teams before, leading a team of volunteers from different corners of the world was an absolutely new experience. But I am glad I got a chance to do so. From creating new social media posts with relevant keywords, images and hashtags to allotting weekly tasks for the volunteers, from coordinating with volunteers to patiently understanding their issues, and maintaining a steady growth of followers/likes to creating a team WhatsApp group – this role has helped me evolve as a leader and I have become more attentive towards the finer details.

It feels good to know that although I have to discontinue working with BLV, my hard work will have had a lasting impact on the educational opportunities of contribute, will enhance the reach of the East Asian charity. I wish nothing disadvantaged children in Vietnam. Hopefully, whatever little I could but the best for BLV and I look forward to coming back again sometime in the future. 

Thank you, Ms Thinh Nguyen, for trusting me with all these responsibilities. It means the world to me and I will treasure this experience forever.