The year 2015, being very active on the political calendar, has witnessed many savage war of words on social media between people of different religious ideologies, between the right wing and the left wing, between AAP supporters and BJP supporters, between media and public, between journalists and politicians and other sets. However, regardless of being seen as a medium which is spreading negativity among people, social media has spread many motivational real-life stories of people. The list of people highlighted for their contributions by the social media in 2015 is very long, so we have picked some of the selective stories:
Rahul Kumar (DM of Gopalganj): During the mid of December 2015, a widow (Sunita Kunwar) was barred by villagers from cooking mid-day meals for students at a government school in Gopalganj district, Bihar. The villagers felt that she is a bad-omen and therefore, she must not be allowed to cook food for students. When the women approached the District Magistrate, he not only visited the school to educate the locals, but also ate the midday meal prepared by Sunita. Rahul, through his tweets, explained his motive and symbolic gesture. His tweets went viral and created much needed positive perception about people in the administration.
Sometimes u do symbolic things to overcome people’s beliefs. Asked the same widow cook to serve me the meal. pic.twitter.com/SoHXueqqRv
— DM Gopalganj (@rahulias6) December 18, 2015
IAS officer Ganga Kumar: A serving IAS officer of Bihar cadre and his architect wife are running an NGO named Grameen Sneh Foundation to spread cancer awareness. In an interview, Ganga Kumar said that initially, his NGO was engaged in health education, art and culture, early childhood education reform and holding health check-up and blood donation camps. But, after his wife Sneha was diagnosed with cancer, he started focusing on cancer awareness camps. Apart from spreading awareness, Kumar and his wife organize free health check-ups for those who can’t afford it. Kumar deliberately tried to stay away from media so that he could focus on his work, however, his story went viral on social media and he was seen as a souce of inspiration by many.
Temsutula Imsong: The Swacch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India Mission) initiated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi attracted many celebrities and politicians, but when two young women – Temsutula Imsong and Darshika Shah – decided to take up the task of cleaning Prabhu Ghat and Babua Pandey Ghat in Varanasi, people would hardly have imagined that they will set such a high benchmark that it will be quoted as an example for years.
Her story went so viral on the social media that it caught the attention of PM Narendra Modi
This effort by @temsutulaimsong & the entire team to clean the Ghats in Varanasi is phenomenal! I salute them. http://t.co/MVp6apZA3B
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 1, 2015
Temsutula and her team did not stop here. They used social media as a tool to mobilize more people and take the initiate to the next level. During 23-25 Novermber, the team organized Shramdaan for Swachh Bharat at a pan-India level. This initiave was again recognized and apprectaited by PM Modi.
Taking Swachh Bharat Mission to all parts of India…#Shramdaan is a very good effort. https://t.co/Y9JZrs2G5I#MyCleanIndia
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) November 23, 2015
Gaurang Damani: Gaurang is an Electronics engineer from Mumbai. He started an NGO “Die Hard Indian” in 2000. Since then he has been involved in many cleaning up and renovation initiatives. In 2015, he started working on cleaning of King’s Circle station. His team was able to pull wonders without approaching any politician or corporate house for help.
When the story of Gaurang got viral on the social media, many people started participating in similar initiative.
Operation Smile: At the fag-end of 2014, a report by Ghaziabad police shared with the Home Ministry asserted that the police unit of Ghaziabad had recovered 227 missing children within 30 days. The Home Minister was quick to order other states to embrace ‘Operation Smile’. The campaign was not only received with sincerity but many it also inspired many senior police officers and journalists to promote it as its brand ambassadors.
Cyberabad Police launched OPERATION SMILE to rescue/rehabilitate Missing Children. Monthlong campaign. 11Taskforces. pic.twitter.com/2svL921Evr
— Rema Rajeshwari IPS (@rama_rajeswari) January 3, 2015
Due to active participations of police officers and social activists, this project has already helped thousands to kids to rescue from mafias.
Happy Birthday Bharat: Avijit Bajpai and his friends started an initiative to take some time out of their busy schedules and celebrate the birthday of underprivileged children in NCR. The noble initiative attracted lots of people from facebook and twitter to extend this across the nation. As reported by IBNLive, dozens of such events are already organized in Delhi, Pune and Mumbai. Moreover, events like these are soon to take place in Kolkata, Surat, Chennai, Dehradun and many more cities all across India.
We could publish only some of such inspiring stories. We hope there will be many motivational stories in 2016.
