By Shubham Kumar, AFS Alumni
“Birla Institute of Technology, Patna: The small changes that happen around us can create a world of difference to the whole surrounding. It gets even better when creativity adheres to the passion of people who want to make changes. This is what the students of BIT Patna did, they renovated a small tea and Maggie shop to a proper hangout place using scrap materials. Shubham, Architecture department 3rd year took the mantle to lead the change in their surrounding area. In Shubham’s own words, quoted by Barack Obama “We are the ones that we have been waiting for, we are the change that we seek.” He had the vision to contribute something back to the society and this is a beginning for many more changes to come. He thought of a creative idea to renovate the place outside his college campus but didn’t exactly knew which place. That’s when he had a talk with Prakash (owner of the shop) to seek his permission to renovate the place.
Shubham had this idea for quite some time and on discussing with Ashish, he found an equally interested partner. The uphill task was up next, gathering like-minded people and 20+ odd people from all the branches gathered and started this rigorous and creative work. They picked up stuff from scrap like cold drink bottles, caps and over the course of next two and half days they formed a truly beautiful and elegant place where students can hang around and even the shop got a new charm to its place.
It was a tough task but with support of each and every member of Paint for Change group (that’s the name of this creative family), the wonderful task was achieved and they will do this every month and renovate a new place. Ideas like these become inspiration with a group of dedicated young people come together and make the change the world needs.”