In this exclusive interview with Indusscrolls team, eminent Fashion Designer Varun Bahl talks about the joy of giving back to society, his commitment and deep involvement in educating the girls in our country.
Inspite of being a successful fashion designer, what inspired you to educate the underprivileged children?
Being an Indian, I have always been passionate about giving back to society in some way or the other. I have been drawn to social service. It is more about the kind of person i am and there is a kind of joy when you help others. Hence, I joined the NGO Khushii. KHUSHII is currently working in 6 states in India reaching out to 25,000 children and impacting lives of more than 5 lakh in the communities in their fight against poverty, abandonment and social neglect. Khushii, conducts through its well planned and comprehensive projects in Remedial and Adult Education, Health and Nutrition, Sanitation, Skill Development and Livelihood. My distinctive goal is to empower women and children from poor and marginalised communities leading to improved life of dignity. As much as possible, we are supporting these children by giving them the stationary for their necessary education, mid day meals etc. Educating the girl child is an issue that is very close to my heart and thus I decided to give it my best shot.
Why did you focus on educating specifically a girl child?
I decided to focus on the girl child as this is a big problem in our country. Since our society is conservative, educating the girl child has never been a priority in our society and thus girls are deprived of education. Education is not affordable or accessible to them. This issue needed to be addressed and so I decided to join the NGO Khushi seven years ago.
Did you face any kind of challenges as 25,000 girls is a big number?
The biggest challenge is to raise a lot of money on a monthly basis as the number of girls we are educating is 25,000 and we are planning to educate more and more girls.
How is your organisation making a difference to the lives of girls in India? What steps have you taken to achieve this?
I have been involved with the Khushi NGO for the last 7 years now. It is not a single man’s effort. We have a huge team working for it. There is a full-fledged office that takes care of all of that. We try our best to raise funds through our good contacts, by conducting events, organising celebrity- artists events, art shows, holding exhibitions, auctions etc.
Having worked for 8 years for the upliftment of girls in our country, how do you feel now?
Working for this kind of initiative always gives me highest satisfaction. There is always immense joy and satisfaction looking at the ‘betis’ of our country educating for a fulfilled career. We are looking forward to educate more and more girls in the future.
How was your meeting with our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi?
We met our honourable Prime Minister Narendra Damodar Modi ji through Khushi NGO. It was when Nepal was stuck with the disastrous earthquake. It was a very cordial meeting where he came to address the grievances of the earth-quake hit people.
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