The Third Coming

This year marks the third chapter of the JGW, a festival of philantropy in which all can participate. In these three years, the JGW has made great strides and is well on the way to turning into a national festival. Some of the events like Design for Change is now seeing participation from beyond the boundaries of India. But certain fundamental questions continue to be asked about the JGW : Is the week more important than the giving ?, is one such question that is often asked. To be very honest, at some level, yes, the week is important for after all the Joy of Giving is celebrated during a week that is earmarked in advance. But this does not mean that giving is secondary for what is of primary importance are the giving events that take place during the week. Can these giving events not take place before or after the week ? Of course they can and they must, but by devoting a week to giving, we are effectively raising the collective consciousness of the people to charity and philantropy. To illustrate : The movement against corruption has seen unprecedented support because of the collective disgust aroused by large scale looting. A time has come when we the people are no longer prepared to put up with corruption and the apathetic attitude of the government to it. Hence massive support for the Anna Hazare led team. We at JGW are similarly trying to drum support for the JGW by pointing out that by simply indulging in an act of giving, we transform lives. If we want to transform society as a whole, then all of us must consciously indulge in acts of charity. That is why the JGW and that is the reason the week is more important than the giving. Oct 2nd to Oct 8th 2011, marks the third chapter of JGW and we at the JGW team hope to raise the bar higher this year, in terms of number of events held, amount of resources raised and most important number of lives positively affected and though there is no way to measure the joy that will spread during the week, we are confident that there will be a lot of joy. The Joy of Giving Week.