Hemansu Zalavadiya is a B.E. (Automobile Engineering) student of A. D. Patel Institute of Technology, who has been continuously involved in beyond the classroom activities.
Here, Hemansu is sharing his experience being a President of Team PRAYAS and a team member of the Center of Excellence in Road Safety. His hard work has the potential to propel him ahead of the curve.
Go ahead and know what his story has to offer so that you can easily find a path of self-growth. Young Influxers go ahead and upgrade yourself!!!
What was your role? Briefly list the responsibilities associated with it.
I am the president of Team PRAYAS and a team member of the Center of Excellence in Road Safety at A. D. Patel Institute of Technology. We mainly concentrate on the activities regarding Road Safety and Pedestrian Safety like Free medical check-up camps, On road activities with traffic police, School and college visit, Blood donation camp, Online survey and quizzes and etc. My main responsibility as a president of Team PRAYAS to lead this organization and to ensure the productivity of team members. I have to attend all the meetings with my team members, professors and other government authorities for planning some activities and decision making. I have to distribute the work among all the team members as per their skills and performance. I am responsible for everything being done in any activity by our organization.
What’s it like to juggle between leadership roles and academics? Pen down the challenges you faced.
If you are a student and you have some responsibilities other than your studies then there is always some juggles between your leadership role and academics. In my case, I have to work every single day to solve the problems of my team members, keeping them engaged with various activities, events and meetings. Work distribution among all the team member is very important and I spend some more time doing it as per our requirements. Apart from all those meetings, events and activities, I have to focus on my academics and career. If you are doing something for society then sometimes you face some questions like “What you will get after doing this social work?” and for this question, my answer is I am not doing this to get anything, I am doing it because I loved it.
Did you also get a chance to connect with any other activity while working on this post?
I believe that if you are a good leader then you have some more skill that as communication and learning skill. If you are good in leadership skill then you are also a good learner and this is a very important thing for all leaders. In our organization, I am working as a president and we had done so many meetings with some other organizations which are working for road safety awareness and also met some government authorities from RTO and Police department. We are doing our activities under the guidance of professional authorities. Now, our Team PRAYAS is working with all this authority and connect with them to make our Indian roads safer.
What are the top learnings, skills and values that you acquired here?
As per my point of view, there are endless skills and values I have learnt from my experience. In that, some important skills are communication skill, time management skill, and some other technical and non-technical skills that I have learnt. By doing such social activities I able to increase my efficiency, creativity and positivity.
Do you feel your current role fills you with pride and gratitude? Illustrate how the experience gained will help you going forward.
We are doing for society as an organization and our vision is to change the mindset of drivers and other road users to ensure road safety and prevent road accidents through education, training and awareness programs. If you are doing something for your nation then definitely you feel proud of yourself. I would like to share my experience, in 2017 we participated in a national level competition named iSAFE with 10 members conducted by Indian Road Safety Campaign (IRSC) at IIT Delhi and secured 3rd rank all over India out of 450+ teams. Because of that, I got a chance to work with Indian Road Safety Campaign as a program manager in 2018 and I got lots of experience with leadership skills and time management skill. After doing all this work and getting some experience we have started our own organization (PRAYAS) with 30 team members in our college.
As when we talk about leadership we have a whole team with us. How do you persuade others to accept your ideas/ways?
In any organization, a good working team is the most important thing. I am working with all the students in my team and all the members of Team PRAYAS are working very well. It is not the right thing that your idea as a leader is always good. If you want to make some good decision for your organization then you have to listen to all the ideas from your team members, and share your idea with them and discuss them and find out all the positive and negative points. Then you can make some good decisions which are really beneficial for your organization.
What is your message to students, aspiring to the same or a similar role to do?
If I can do it then you can also do it. Believe in yourself and don’t think about the result before doing anything. If you really want to do something which is really good for you, your family and your society then start from a small step and give more efforts to get your aim with time.
How can we (Friends, Family, YI Fraternity) encourage young students such as yourself to engage with co-curricular or extra-curricular activities?
We can encourage them by teaching them some valuable things like social responsibilities, some interpersonal skills and by motivating them to be a good human being so they can contribute to the nation and feel proud of themselves.
Anything else would you like to say to the YI learners who’ll be reading your experience?
I just want to say that do your best, don’t think about the results, always be positive and keep trying to get your vision with hard and smart work.
We at Young Influx would take this opportunity to thank Hemansu for taking a leap of faith and sharing his impeccable story. We are humbled and grateful, your efforts mean a lot for the youth seeking growth and development.
And hello, dear readers, we welcome you to explore the platform with an open mind. Help yourself gain the most out of the experiences and opportunities listed here.
And before you bid us adieu, we would like you to know that you can read more such student stories here.
One of the things I admire about you is Positivity. Such a great story and experience.