Save Electricity - as much as you can!

1) Always turn-off lights and all electric and electronics equipments when you leave a room.

2) USE CFL-blubs instead of traditional light-bulbs.

3) Use natural lights as much as possible.

4) Use cooler or fan instead of AC.

5) Never keep fridge-doors open unnecessarily.

6) Unplug your mobile-chargers while not charging these.

7) Do not keep your TV / PC any other equipment in stand-by mode - as they do consume electricity while waiting for next signal to switch them on.

8 ) India is a blessed country - try going solar for as many equipments as you can!

Dreams Unlimited..!!!

Thousands of dreams we think of everyday - isn’t it? Then we also tend to stop and think, “Do dreams really come true?” Our answer - Yes, it does happen for many but it might not happen for few. Yes, everyone cannot be Frieda Pinto and get instant success. Some strive hard to achieve it, and some get it in a hard way like Oprah Winfrey did.

Where do we count ourselves? 90-95 times out of 100 times we crib and complain to that why he did put us on the other-side of success. Unsatisfied, stressed…with no meaning in life, we wander…we wander finding ourselves helpless and failed, cursing our lives!

But, hardly a few of us think whether they really have gone through the bitter truths of life - what we call a FAILURE in all respects and the toughest STRUGGLEs of life, are they really so?

Of course not, because God has given almost everything to most of us to lead a happy, contented life. Some are LUCKY like me and you - who are reading this blog, and some are UNLUCKY for whom I am writing this blog.

Unlucky they are, because their inabilities - in terms of physical or mental disability, poverty, illiteracy, inequality etc., which falter them on their ROAD TO SUCCESS on every single ride they take. Its rightly said that “tough time never lasts but tough people do….!!!” This kind of life does make them tough but it also does de-motivates them and pulls them down. Each time they try to move their face forward in direction of betterment, their so called inabilities slap them straight on their faces.

Do they regret and leave at that moment? No, not all of them - some perish and some flourish. How is that possible??

Of course, with people like YOU (who are not so unlucky)! And of course, with the DETERMINATION and HARDWORK these people put in, this is possible. All this happens because of GOD’s GRACE, he wants us to help each other and walk together towards success.

Every one at some point in life does want to do something for the society; for our own people but it doesn’t happen either because we can’t afford to do it, or more often we don’t know how to go about it.

“Even when you have nothing, you still have yourself, and that’s the most important thing.”

‘Matrica Foundation’ is that RAY OF LIGHT which helps in transforming these UNLUCKY people into LUCKY CHARMS. I found this foundation as a small way by which we can make a small but huge difference to someone’s life…just by helping these people surpass a few troubles, helping them to smoothen their somewhat bumpy road towards success. If at least once in your life there came a thought of making a difference to the society or towards the environment, please join it and contribute in whatever way you can. Let’s help them to realise their ‘LIMITED DREAMS’……..

Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. ~William James

Written

Sharmila Kamat

MBA-HR

Sylvester Peter - with a nobel goal: dignity for slum children

Education for all

His goal dignity for slum children

Ref: Times Of India, 9th Aug, 2009

It is not very often that you come across stories of selfless persons devotin their entire life for some nobel cause - today’s (9th Aug, 2009) Times of India had one such article on Sylvester Peter. The whole article has been reproduced below:

A visit to this nondescript slum cluster in Vikaspuri throws up many surprises. The first ones to greet you are 70-odd streetchildren who come rushing with their arms stretched out. They say ‘hello, how are you?’ much as a ritual and don’t let you settle down till you’ve shaken hands with each of them. These English-speaking slum kids are the proud products of Angel Academy — a one-room shanty located in a dim-lit corner of this cluster — run by their beloved ‘bhaiya’ — Sylvester Peter.

Sylvester has been grooming, training and teaching slum children in this makeshift academy for nearly a decade. He’s no less than a boon for these underprivileged children, many of whom were ragpickers, petty thieves, housemaids and even drug addicts. Now, they go to school, dress up well, do not abuse, and ‘take bath every day’ — a criterion they now deem essential for being a part of Angels.
Sylvester, a holistic trainer by profession, trains children aged between 3 and 20 years. He meets them sharp at 5am every day for soccer and yoga practice. The children go to school and the academy starts again in the evening when Sylvester returns from work. His dedication, professional training and tireless attitude have instilled dreams in these children. Unmindful of their parents’ reluctance and sketchy backgrounds, these kids now aspire to become teachers, engineers and even ‘Zinedine Zidane’.
Sylvester says, ‘‘Many of them, including girls, have the potential to become national-level soccer players. They play really well and I would make sure they rise and shine.’’ As a routine set by their mentor, the students have to wake up at 4am daily. ‘‘Each senior student has been given the charge of a set of slums. The older students go to the slums allotted to them to wake up the younger children at 4 every morning,’’ he says ‘‘Students selfevaluate their work,’’ Sylvester says, adding that he makes sure his students learn English so they can be eligible for the corporate world later in life. ‘‘I don’t guarantee to make them doctors or engineers. But they will definitely become good citizens,’’ Sylvester says proudly.
The students agree. Sandeep, who has been with Sylvester for 16 years, says, ‘‘Bhaiya nahi hote toh main faltu ghumta rehta. (Had he not been around, I would have roamed about aimlessly).’’ Sandeep has now resumed studies and plans to become a professional photographer. Twelve-year-old Taqbir, who was a drug-addict earlier, says, ‘‘My classmates in school are jealous because I have bhaiya who taught me English.’’
The 36-year-old has been working for the betterment of such children since he was 13. Though Sylvester’s three siblings studied in a convent, his parents preferred to put him in a Tamil government school.There he came across the plight of his classmates, a majority of whom came from poor families. Soon, helping them out became his way of life. Friends may call him mad, his marriage may not have worked, but his passion for these children has hardly dipped. He manages the academy singlehandedly giving up all heearns. ‘‘Some NGOs and spiritual gurus offered help in the past but they always have strings attached. Political workers also came to meet me during elections but my children chose to turn them away,’’ Sylvester recalls.
He has provided the children with soccer kits, books, pencils and a computer. The immense love his disciples have for him shows. However, the rigid attitude of parents often acts as an obstacle, besides the lurking fear of demolition of the slums. But Sylvester has vowed to keep the show going. ‘‘I am working towards moving out of the slums to a proper academy. I’m trying to form a trust and will do it on my own if nobody comes forward to help.’’

Child and starfish

While walking along a beach, a man saw in the distance what looked like a boy dancing.
He was encouraged by the outward expression of someone dancing to the new day on the beach, and he approached the young man. As he got closer, he realized that the young man was actually running, leaning down, picking something up and then gently throwing it far into the ocean.

As he came closer, he saw thousands of starfish the tide had thrown onto the beach. Unable to return to the ocean during low tide, the starfish were dying. He observed the young man picking up the starfish one by one and throwing them back.

After watching the seemingly futile effort, the observer said to the young man, “There must be thousands of starfish on this beach. It would be impossible for you to get to all of them. There are simply too many. You can’t possibly save enough to make a difference.”

The young man smiled as he continued to pick up another starfish and toss it back into the ocean.

“It made a difference to that one,” he replied.

Unknown

Save Paper and save tree

Did you know that each ton of paper saved can help save,

• 17 trees to produce more oxygen.
• 1438 liters of precious oil to run our industries.
• Three cubic yards of landfill space towards providing housing for the homeless.
• 4100 kilowatts of scarce energy to light up our homes.
• Over 26497 galloons of fresh water to irrigate our farms and…
• A tree is cut for every 3000 sheets of paper produced.

Hitesh

Matrican

Travelling to work…can I do something for these street children?

To work from home means a journey of around 40 km in one direction – or just 80 km a day, fortunately in a cab, which I’ve been sharing with my nice colleague-friends. But it happens daily - each day I see them at almost all the signals, tapping on your car’s windows for your kind attentions – for just a rupee or two, so that, as they say with teary eyes, they can have a simple meal after a whole day filled of nothing else but hunger, or in fact, can give that to their parents or anybody else running that racket on that particular signal. Some of them in utterly pathetic states – almost at the last edge of humanity, waiting to fall off from it - crying or pretending to cry – very often with a fresh looking, dirty wound, to evoke sympathy from you, others begging cheerfully- a few with monkey-makeup or mustaches painted on their faces, others playing a doholak – a small, Indian drum, nearby. What strikes you the most is that almost all of them are in their tweens, or even less– the elder ones do not, yes, they DON’T beg – they, I believe, have been promoted after going through all this routines to the manager of that signal…or perhaps not, but yes, have matured into crimes or even prostitution, or, I hope not, may have died after suffering from years of malnutrition and not to mention, sniffing of erasing/thinner-liquids. Can I do something - other than lamenting that I cannot do anything? Would my donating a rupee to a couple of them each day make any difference…or even donating some couple of thousand rupees to one of those organizations with on-line, pay-pal accounts, proclaiming to be champion of – as I read somewhere - these children fallen through the cracks of society? Or will it help if I can teach them something – something they can’t even dream of – nothing fancy, but simple alphabets, counting, and a minimal of maths? Don’t know, but we’re about to reach our office , means that I have to come out of my slumber, look cheerful and energetic again…can anyone of you suggest something? Yogesh Mahajan IT Professional

Apply These Product Ratings Generously

By JULIE SCELFO
Many Web sites provide information on choosing products that are “green” or “nontoxic” or “cruelty free,” but GoodGuide.com is one of the first that rates products on potential environmental, health and social effects. The site, which is still in beta test mode but has already had more than a million visitors, is the brainchild of Dara O’Rourke, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies global supply chains and who started the project with grants from nonprofit foundations.
Why did you start GoodGuide.com?
I have a daughter who is 6, and a few years ago I was putting sunscreen on her face and stopped myself. I just didn’t know what was in there. So I brought it to campus for testing and turns out there was a suspected endocrine disrupter and a photocarcinogen — a chemical that, when exposed to sunlight, has a carcinogenic potential to it. That set me on the path of researching basically every single product in our household. From her products to our products to food products to electronics, I found chemicals that had been banned in Europe, or are being phased out in Japan, Australia, Canada. Meanwhile, every time I gave a lecture about global supply chains, people would come up and say, “Look, can you just tell me what to buy?” It made me realize I need to translate all this academic and scientific research to make it useful to the public.
So how does the site work?
This is going to sound geeky, but we developed something called “product ontology,” which is basically a process to determine what matters scientifically in evaluating a product. You see products that say they are ozone-friendly or don’t contain CFCs, but the real impact is somewhere else in the life chain, like in the manufacturing step or end-of-life disposal. So we have a team of scientists who figure out what matters most in a product category. Then, we flow data about the product into a system that uses an algorithm to weight all the variables and turn the data into a rating.
Is the site useful to someone who cares about global warming but not about, say, animal welfare?
We’re not trying to tell you how to live your life or what social issue we think you should live by. We want you to make choices that better match your values or your concerns, so you can personalize the information using several filters.
What types of products do you rate?
So far we have personal care products, household chemicals, food products and toys. We asked our users what do you want next. They said pet food. We’re adding products gradually and also plan to do electronics, household furnishings, paper products and apparel.