Daan Utsav was formerly known as The Joy of Giving Week. The Joy of Giving Week (JGW) is a "festival of philanthropy" that aims to become a part of the Indian ethos, with the Week being celebrated every year covering

Gandhi Jayanti Gandhi Jayanti is an event celebrated in India to mark the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. It is celebrated annually on 2 October, and is one of the three national holidays of India. The UN General Assembly announced on 15 June 2007 that it adop ...

by engaging people through ''"acts of giving"'' - money, time, resources and skills - spanning the corporate, NGO and government sectors, schools, colleges and the general public. Originally called "India Giving Week", the name "Joy of Giving Week" emerged from a set of choices provided by the ad agency, Euro RSCG India, which provided PR, creative and media services for the ‘Joy of Giving Week’. This initiative was supported by many NGO's and Corporates. Corporate participate with this venture to fulfill their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) function.

Initiatives undertaken

Several corporates, celebrities and organizations have undertaken efforts towards awareness, volunteering and fundraising events that they will organize during the ''Joy of Giving Week''. A brief outline on some of the initiatives that have taken place during the Week in 2009.

FOR CHANGE

The Design for Giving School Contest inspires children between the age group 10-13 from over 10,000 private and government schools all over India to design solutions to India's problems and implement them during the Week. Presented by Riverside School in Ahmedabad, NID, Stanford Design School and

IDEO IDEO () is a design and consulting firm with offices in the U.S., England, Germany, Japan, and China. It was founded in Palo Alto, California, in 1991. The company's 700 staff uses a design thinking approach to design products, services, environ ...

, in partnership with hundreds of educational NGOs and schools across India.

Clothes collection drive

Goonj runs a Vastradaan initiative that provides clothes and other amenities to the far-flung villages, collecting on an average 20,000 kg or about 1.2 lac units of clothing every month, processing it and distributing it through a unique clothes for work program. For the ''Joy of Giving Week'', Goonj has undertaken a massive clothes collection drive in over 25 cities, targeting to collect at least 1 crore units of clothing during the week.

Stories of Joy

Stories of Joy brings together five short films that carry the message of Joy of Giving through interesting stories. A Real Joy Ride

College Joyfest

A "College Joyfest" to promote awareness and sensitivity among youth of 300+ college campuses in India catalyzing as fundraisers for the partner with local NGOs during the cultural festivals. The initiative was being led by JAM Magazine JAM Magazine and was being supported by

MTV India MTV India is an Indian pay television channel specialising in music, reality and youth culture programming. It was launched in 1996 as the Indian version of MTV and is owned by Viacom 18, a joint venture operation between MTV International owne ...

7Days7Gifts

7Days7Gifts,7days7gifts.ning.com a simple idea where people will be encouraged to do random acts of kindness to people they don’t know for every day of the week. The 7 Day gifting challenge aims to take the focus away from you on to others. The only real condition here is that each gift should be meaningful and some thought should have gone into it.

Battle of the Buffet

"Battle of the Buffet" events by the 5 star Hotels in

Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

and

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River (India), Musi River, in the northern part ...

, where they provided their most lavish spreads free of cost to NGOs of the city, who worked together as a city and sell donor passes to raise funds for their work.

Hi5 Club

Hi5 Club is an event by Bhumi and volunteers.org to engage college students and young people in volunteering for a cause of their choice for five hours during Daan Utsav. Students can volunteer either on the structured opportunities provided by Bhumi (5 hrs of teaching, cleaning a beach/park, visiting an elderly home, making educational aids, sorting out clothes or doing a collection drive, etc.), or can identify their own activity.

Celebrities Support for the Week

Celebrities from various facets supported various initiatives during the week. * Sports -

Sachin Tendulkar Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar (; ; born 24 April 1973) is an Indian former international cricketer who captained the Indian national team. He is regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the all time highest run-scor ...

Rahul Dravid Rahul Sharad Dravid (; born 11 January 1973) is an Indian cricket coach and former captain of the Indian national team, currently serving as its head coach. Prior to his appointment to the senior men's national team, Dravid was the Head of ...

Geet Sethi Geet Siriram Sethi (born 17 April 1961) of India is a professional player of English billiards who dominated the sport throughout much of the 1990s. He is also a notable amateur (ex-pro) snooker player. He is a five-time winner of the professio ...

Prakash Padukone Prakash Padukone (born 10 June 1955) is a former Indian badminton player. He was ranked World No. 1 in 1980; the same year he became the first Indian to win the All England Open Badminton Championships. He was awarded the Arjuna award in 1972 ...

, Gopichand * Cinema -

Shahrukh Khan Shah Rukh Khan (; born 2 November 1965), also known by the initialism SRK, is an Indian actor, film producer, and television personality who works in Hindi films. Referred to in the media as the " Baadshah of Bollywood", "King of Bollywood" ...

Saif Ali Khan Saif Ali Khan (; born Sajid Ali Khan Pataudi; 16 August 1970) is an Indian actor and film producer who works in Hindi films. Part of the Pataudi family, he is the son of actress Sharmila Tagore and cricketer Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Khan ma ...

Deepika Padukone Deepika Padukone ( or ; born 5 January 1986) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. She is one of the highest-paid actresses in India, and her accolades include three Filmfare Awards. She features in listings of the nation's most pop ...

Nandita Das Nandita Das (born 7 November 1969) is an Indian actress and director. She has acted in over 40 feature films in ten different languages. Das appeared in the films ''Fire'' (1996), ''Earth'' (1998), '' Bawandar'' (2000), '' Kannathil Muthamittal' ...

, Imtiaz Ali,

Shriya Saran Shriya Saran Bhatnagar (; born 11 September 1982) is an Indian actress who works predominantly in Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi-language films. Although Saran aspired to become a well-known dancer, she became an actress with her film debut in 2001 ...

Surya Sivakumar Saravanan Sivakumar (born 23 July 1975), known by his stage name Suriya, is an Indian actor, producer, television presenter and a Philanthropy, philanthropist. He primarily works in Tamil cinema where he is one of the highest paid actors. He re ...

Madhavan Madhavan may refer to: People * James Madhavan (died 1973), Fijian politician * Kavya Madhavan (born 1985), Indian actress * Mahesh Madhavan (born 1963/64), Indian businessman, CEO of Bacardi * N. S. Madhavan (born 1948), Indian writer * O. Madha ...

Mini Mathur Mini Mathur (born 21 August 1975) is an Indian television host, actor and model. She was the host of the Indian reality singing contest '' Indian Idol'' for 6 seasons. Earlier, she was a VJ on MTV India where she hosted many shows. She has a b ...

* Corporate - Narayana Murthy, Kumar Birla,

KV Kamath Kundapur Vaman Kamath is the former chief of the New Development Bank of BRICS countries, previously he has also served as the Chairman of Infosys Limited, the second-largest Indian IT services company, and as the Non-Executive Chairman of ICIC ...

Adi Godrej Adi Burjorji Godrej (born 3 April 1942) is an Indian billionaire businessman and industrialist, head of the Godrej family, and chairman of the Godrej Group. , he has a net worth of US$2.3 billion. Early life Godrej completed his schooling at ...

Deepak Parekh Deepak Parekh (born 18 October 1944) is an Indian businessman and the Chairman of Housing Development Finance Corporation, India's leading housing private development finance institution. It is based in Mumbai. Education Parekh completed his ...

Ajay Piramal Ajay Gopikisan Piramal CBE (born 3 August 1955) is an Indian billionaire industrialist, and the chairman of the Piramal Group, a conglomerate with interests in pharmaceutical, financial services, real estate, healthcare analytics and glass pac ...

References

{{Reflist, 2

Other websites

Joy Of Giving Week
Entertainment events in India