Community for students by students

A 14-year-old entrepreneur Manvi Shroff started The Charis Club, a social venture targeting youth and children. The meaning of Charis is 'grace' and 'kindness'. The Charis Club is a membership-based, community driven venture with the primary objective of bringing more smiles and upliftment in the lives of the underprivileged and supporting environmental and social causes. The secondary objective is to introduce the more-privileged lot to the challenges and adversities, allowing them to become more inclusive, wholesome, and humble citizens.

Speaking to The Young Hans Manvi says, "We aim to inculcate the art of giving among youth in a fun-filled, Gen-Z way. We are building a community led by students for students where we focus on social and environmental causes. The story of The Charis Club started when I was reading a book by Sudha Murthy 'A lesson in life from a beggar'. That had a profound impact on me, and I wanted to do something which would bring about positive change in the world and encourage others to make a change."

After having 25 members within the first two months and having executed three events, Manvi was further encouraged by my parents. So far, they have built their community primarily by word-of-mouth. They also leverage social media to spread awareness and have partnered with several foundations and charities.

Benefit for students

In the Gen-Z era, unfortunately children are not willing to come out of their social lives and spend time giving back and making a change. The Charis Club solves this problem by allowing children to participate in these activities without them having to break away from their social lives, in fact only enhancing the same.

It is like playing a game on an app, having fun, while the magic wand collects credits (smiles and impact) and you get medals, certificates, loyalty points, Instaposts etc at the end of every event and make friends on the way. This helps students build a Social resume, a credentialing system, which can come to good use later for university admissions, job interviews etc. Going forward we shall build a points-based rating mechanism for students which can form a basis of their social resume.

"Our long term goal is to build a platform that will play a role in empowering our next generation to be more socially responsible citizens, help them build core life skills such as empathy, compassion, team work and leadership skills from a relatively young age while uplifting lives of the underprivileged and creating community impact at scale. No other organized platform exists such as this and we believe there is a pressing need for a platform such as ours," adds Manvi.

Manvi believes that at her age, it can get a bit too much to handle studies, sports, debates, entrepreneurship, and social life, but I balance it all and avoid perfectionism.

"I also cut back on non-productive activities like gadgets or watching TV. I spend my free time working on The Charis Club, not because it is my job, but because it is so much fun," concludes Manvi.