One tends to want to give back to society once they are stable and have earned a massive income for themselves. But imagine at the mere age of 23, working towards giving back to society and ensuring that the future generation are able to access the bare necessities, which you and I may take for granted on a daily basis. This is exactly what Amitabh Shah, now age 35, did. For the past 12 years, he has been “unstoppable” in ensuring that the underprivileged children across India have access to better toilet facilities, improved drinking water, scholarships, life skills training, and much more. Having started in 2005, Amitabh Shah's initiative, Yuva Unstoppable has now become a movement throughout India.
Brought up in Ahmedabad, Amitabh Shah pursued his bachelors from the University of Alabama, USA, and went on to pursue his MBA at Yale University. He gave up a secure lifestyle with the prospect of career progression and promotions to return back to his roots and do something worthy for the real people of India.
Since its inception, Yuva Unstoppable has assembled more than 150,000 volunteers for the betterment of 400,000 underprivileged children across 32 cities in India. They have transformed 500 exceedingly poor government inner-city schools by providing better facilities, such as toilets, and educational needs. Currently, it is said that there are about 1.1 million schools in India and about 50% of them still do not have toilets for girls to use at school. Amitabh Shah shares, “All these corporate employees would come up and say, 'Have you seen the bathrooms in the schools? You're teaching maths and science but for 300 girls, there is only one loo.' So they would have to hold it in for 8 hours and the smell is absolutely disgusting there [toilets]. Because of that there is hygiene problems, there are health issues, and girls drop out of school. They said the drinking water and dishwashing basin water were all the same. It's like a tap for 500 kids. There are no benches so you get back problems while growing up... They paint the wall black and write on it with a chalk. So they said, 'Can we come with a movement where the corporates, individuals and foundations come and adopt these schools?' So I said, 'why not?'”
Shah goes on to say, “I'm happy to say that within the last three years, we mobilised about 100 corporates and built about 550 schools... I realised people across the world care about children in India and I am delighted to have the Beefy Foundation, which has raised more than £30 million in the last 30 years.”
Beefy Foundation helps to fund specific projects relating to chronic illnesses and other challenges young people might face. Beefy Foundation has worked with Yuva Unstoppable to inspire children to strive for the best in life. Trustee of Beefy Foundation, Naynesh Desai, who is a lawyer by profession said, “As trustees, when we are funding anything, we look at transparency and accountability. Yuva [Unstoppable] are fantastic on that, which is comforting for trustees and everybody involved because it means when we take money from people, we're able to tell them what exactly has happened to it. We often find charities where huge amounts disappear in admin costs and so on. Here none of this is happening. Money is going exactly where it's needed and it's having the effect.”
Desai further states, “The reason why this particular charity appealed is how very little can turn into so much. Something as simple as a toilet improves attendance rates at schools. You're suddenly improving literacy rates. That's the beauty about this charity that so little has such a huge impact.”
Recently the Yuva Unstoppable – Padman Award was held in Mumbai, India where Naynesh Desai won an award for his charitable work. The event was also attended by Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor, and director R. Balki, who distributed sanitary pads to schoolgirls at the event.
Amitabh Shah urges people to do more to inspire children to thrive to make their dreams come true but making the foundation of their education strong. Shah wants people to “open their hearts and look at India as a place to empower children with smart classrooms, with better toilets and with better water facilities. It's not just about giving the resources. It is also about giving your time.”
