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This movement seeks to holistically transform Pune into a ‘poorna’ or complete city, here’s how
At the centre of this movement is the spirit of compassion .This is the operative word for several NGOs, social workers, entrepreneurs, students, educators and citizens who have joined hands to create an atmosphere of compassion, in the city.
Poorna Pune, a mission to holistically transform Pune through collaborative effort and make it a better city for everyone was launched in 2015.
The Poorna Pune movement seeks to make Pune ‘complete’ (‘Poorna’) in all respects like bringing in improvements in education, health, food, traffic and safety, participatory governance and environment.
At the centre of this movement is the spirit of compassion .This is the operative word for several NGOs, social workers, entrepreneurs, students, educators and citizens who have joined hands to create an atmosphere of compassion, in the city. “We want to build a connection through conversation in order to create an environment of compassion,” said Arun Wakhlu, a leadership training facilitator, who conceptualised and launched this movement on April 21, 2015.
In an interview, Wakhlu, said, “Poorna Pune is a vision of a compassionate, caring, connected and creative Pune. It is a vision of a Pune of our deepest dreams: Swachh (Clean), Sammruddh (Thriving), Surakshit (Safe), Sajag (Awake), Shaant (Peaceful) and Swasth (Healthy). Poorna Pune is registered with the charter for compassion as a compassionate city, where everyone can be a leader or change-maker.”
For Wakhlu, who has been orchestrating the numerous strings of the initiative like bringing all collectives (mentioned above) under one umbrella, uniting all individual efforts has been a challenge, but a necessity. According to him, only through the united effort of the separate entities and their resources, the greatest value of work can be achieved to the fullest.
“For instance, we have some of the best schools and educators in Pune, but there is hardly any dialogue or exchange of teaching and learning methods between them. The vision and process of Poorna Pune catalysed them to come together to improve things in almost 50 different schools from both urban and rural parts of Pune,” he said.
Setting an example for cities across the country and the globe, the movement has established four collaborations with cities abroad. Boulder (Colorado), Ashland and Portland (Oregon), and Austin (Texas) will collaborate with Pune to learn and grow as compassionate and wholesome cities. Of these, Austin, also a compassionate city, is the most active collaborator.
A number of workshops and dialogue sessions have been launched under the programme to find and implement sustainable solutions for social problems. One such event was an initiative to begin an alternative India-Pakistan dialogue by involving students from a school in Pune and another from Karachi. The objective was to have unhinged conversations with each other over the Internet and dismantle the misconceptions around their respective nationalities.
The towering dream of Poorna Pune has evidently met with a number of challenges. The need for funding and passionate change-makers are two of the biggest challenges, says Wakhlu. To overcome the latter, Pragati Leadership Foundation which is spearheading this movement, has drawn up a plan to train and churn out the best change-makers.
This task force of Poorna Pune, called the I-Catalysts, will be responsible for the initiation, implementation and propagation of all the successful strategies undertaken by Poorna Pune, across the city, state and the country.
