Challenge

During my graduation years, I was a part of a social service unit named National Service Scheme  (NSS) unit. It was a 2-year programme and during the second year, I was one of the leaders of our  college's NSS unit. We were to plan an orientation event for the new volunteers who were joining  the unit. This is where we came across a challenge as to how to inspire the new volunteers to give  their best and not just do this for improving their resume (plus there were brownie points as well in  the academics if you completed the two years of the NSS programme).

Selection

All the leaders (5 of us) were brainstorming to strike a common ground as to what approach must be  used to instil the empathy and determination, which was required to actively participate in the  activities of NSS, in the new volunteers. I came up with an idea of using story-telling technique, i.e.  to try to connect with the audience, a.k.a the new volunteers, all the leaders decided to share one  story each that portrayed their past experiences so that the new volunteers could connect to the  values of the programme.

We, in some sense, had used this precious tool of Design Thinking (unknowingly) at the time.

Application

On the day of the orientation event, I shared one of my experiences of my first year with the NSS  unit.

Experience: I had volunteered to participate in the pulse polio drive that was going across Mumbai  (my college's location) and I was posted in a small locality where not many people were aware about  the need for polio vaccines for their children. We started by first setting up the booth and then some  of our team members (I was one of them) went to each and every house in the locality to persuade  them to vaccinate their children. I remember there was one family that was quite adamant on not  inoculating their child but we made them understand the need for the vaccines and also showed  them an awareness video and somehow, we were successful in getting their child vaccinated. The  incident still gives me a lot of happined.

The other leaders also shared their stories with the new volunteers during the event.

Insight and Approach

I could not believe that our approach had worked so well with the new volunteers. I remember  many of the volunteers contacted us personally as well as over the phone (via texts, calls) that they  actually wanted to bring change in the society and that they will devote their time to NSS unit  enthusiastically.

In the hindsight, when I think about that meeting of us - leaders, I am able to connect to the content  of this course. Using the story-telling approach in our case enlightened the new volunteers to put in  efforts to add value to the NSS unit.

Drawing upon the course's teachings, I can say that a visualisation approach will have also reaped  similar results. We could have mapped the past year's journey of the NSS unit and could have  showed them the impact we made in the society.

