A new beginning for Faith Foundation.

A New Beginning

Finding a purpose in life is a revelation to actually start living and worthy to uphold a privilege and to actually use that privilege to help the less fortunate ones. These four founders of the Faith Foundation followed their callings in life and formed an organization to help those that need their guidance and assistance with relevance to living a healthy and prospective life in society. For these four young women, establishing an organization was just a stepping stone to validate their ideas and beliefs. True, it wasn’t a joy ride with lullaby songs for these four young women before establishing their organization. Many trials and errors were very much part of the process leading up to the formation of the organization. It was just an idea that all these women shared that furthered the prospects of establishing an organization. Ms. Maniung, while away and still pursuing her Masters, had an idea to establish an organization of her own related to substance abuse. Little did she know that Ms. Shannon and Ms. Bari were also planning to establish an organization related to human trafficking and HIV/AIDS. It was only later when Ms. Maniung finally came back to Shillong after her studies that she met Ms. Shannon and Ms. Bari and came to know about their plans and ideas. Ms. Mahming, on the other hand, knew about the plans to establish an organization since 2012 and was a part of all process leading up to the formation of the organization.

All three women never looked back after this and went ahead and made a plan and vowed to establish an organization in Shillong. When Faith Foundation was established, the first year was more of agenda settings and networking in and around Shillong. Ground work was also important for the organization to know the reality and to comprehend the issues prevalent in society and Shillong in particular. With Ms. Maniung’s award from her Institute, it helped the organization to set up a proper working office for the organization. They also received a little bit of financial help from friends and loved ones. It was a tough first year for them as their budget was low and whatever they had was spent on building their important programs and strategies and other inevitable requirements for the organization. Bah Demand Jyrwa, one of the board members of the organization, met all the four founders one day and listened to their genuine ideas and plans for the organization and he felt the authenticity and sincerity of all the four women towards the organization and with this he donated a little out of goodwill for the organization which went on to helped the organization in more ways than one. Office hassle was another major problem for the organization. However, after moving from one working place to another, they finally found a proper working place at Bara Bazar, Shillong, in April, 2014, given to them by a well wisher of the organization. These four founders made a lot of sacrifice to established Faith Foundation. They quit their jobs, started the organization penniless and still had the courage to move forward with their beliefs and aspirations are commendable and more power to them.

(Written by Delanmi Massar, Intern of the Organization)