BHARATI PAWASKAR
He’s all out to be a saviour, a messenger and a friend who would listen, care, share and guide. In his unique way of helping out the society, especially the youth of Goa, Dr Varun Carvalho, a dentist with a musical bent of mind, has been able to touch and transform over a lakh budding minds in the state - simply through his music. Be the change you want to see in the world, is the message Dr Varun wants to spread with his musical performances in schools and colleges in Goa.
On the occasion of international week against drug abuse, Dr Varun conducted a recent event at St Xavier HSS, Mapusa wherein 1200 students took the pledge to say ‘No’ to drugs and say ‘Yes’ to life! “The programme was hugely appreciated. In this programme, my foundation ‘The Rise Nation Army’ joined hands with Goa Police as the state and her people fight the war against drugs. Let’s fight the war together, let all join to take the resolution to save our generation,” appeals Dr Varun who kick-started his foundation five years ago to translate these goals into reality.
The foundation conducts programmes like - ‘Be the Change’, ‘Stand up to the Right’, ‘Say no to Drugs’, ‘Live the Dream’, ‘Clean up Goa’, ‘Rise as One’, ‘Mukhar Chal Chedwa’ (girl child/women empowerment slogan) etc where musical performances create awareness by sensitizing the people on these issues. Dr Varun is vocal about the need to mentor today’s young generation that has so many distractions in the world that’s around them, that the real goal of life, sometimes, gets lost.
“Our youth in Goa, especially from the coastal belts, is prone to and exposed to drugs. The teenagers are much more vulnerable and fall prey to this trap. I plan to cover the city schools too as drugs are getting rampant there too. The kids are getting access to this poison that’s killing our young India. As we cannot fight the mafias who control the drug rackets, let us sensitise the kids, educate them about the ill-effects of drugs and caution them to stay away from it,” states Dr Varun who travels with his music truck empowering youth by his meaningful messages.
He recalls his own childhood, “I used to stammer when I was young so I had a pretty tough childhood. Most people around including teachers had given up on me, but I found the strength to rise up and make my own life. I started the Rise Nation Army foundation, basically, to give hope to the kids that they can find the strength within and rise up.”
Youth today need easier and faster ways to be happy. They need something to give them a high so that happy hormones are released in their bodies. Unless we keep them engaged in some fruitful activity, they will go haywire. If we believe that we have to build up this nation, we have to have youth with moral integrity and meditative nature. I believe that music is the medication and meditation for them. Music changed my life and made me what I am today. I want to share this gift of music to the kids so that they can use music positively and uplift themselves.”
For today’s kids, just to be meditative can be difficult. But music can lead them to that state of mind. Music can elevate their consciousness to a higher stage. Having IQ and EQ is important but having spiritual quotient is the need of the hour. Dr Varun’s foundation basically works at teaching the youth to go within and elevate themselves to a higher spiritual consciousness so that they will develop the strength and belief that they can make a positive difference to the world.
He believes the youth hold the key to transforming the world. Youth are young and fearless and more intuitive. “I believe change will happen when we trust our intuition and our instincts,” he says. His foundation has covered over 100 schools, higher secondary schools and colleges across Goa in the past five years and touched and transformed the lives of around lakh children, inspiring them to rise up and become better people.
“We are definitely seeing the results and we hope we will have a morally upright generation who will rise up and take our country forward with strong values and with the self-belief that they can rise above all the problems and be the change they want to see in the society,” concludes Dr Varun.
