This organisation’s aim is to make HIV/AIDS history in Aurangabad
MGVS was my second visit to an NGO that works for people with HIV/AIDS; and I can now say with confidence that I understand the plight of not only persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) but also social workers working for the cause. Terms like PLHA, O I treatment, ART and CD4 are no longer Greek. (For the uninitiated, these stand for persons living with HIV/AIDS, opportunistic infections, anti-retroviral therapy, CD4 is a specific type of white blood cell that plays a large role in helping your body fight disease. Keeping this count high is important when it comes to fighting HIV/AIDS.) Moreover, my respect for organizations like MGVS has only gone up. Earlier, I was a distant spectator and respected them for providing for positive children; but after spending an entire day with them (at the local Government hospital’s ART center to chatting with their fieldworkers to reviewing files and photographs of their work over the years and speaking to their direct beneficiaries), I truly entered their world!
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How it all began
MGVS was set up by Mr. Appasaheb in 1995. Mr. Appasaheb hails from a small village in Vaijapur Taluk of Aurangabad District – that’s where the first project that MGVS undertook was launched. And not surprisingly so because that was the purpose behind setting up MGVS itself – to help the downtrodden from his own village.
Most of MGVS’s team is involved in fieldwork. This is where the core of what they do lies. Hence, their expertise is more with grassroutes work; and when I comes to things like reporting and document, they find great difficulties. A volunteer who can help them with documentation of all kinds would be greatly appreciated. Given the spread of their work, it would be essential for that person to spend atleast a month with MGVS. After all it would take atleast 2 weeks to get a good understanding of all their activities. MGVS will host the volunteer at a hostel in Aurangabad – it’s a basic but safe and clean setup. The experience of working with them on field will be a memorable one, promises their team. Knowledge of Marathi language would help the person communicate well but a Hindi-speaker would also manage just fine.