Everyone Deserves Happiness – Urban Company with NAZ Foundation

“…All we need is somebody to lean on.”

My first memory of this song was when my ten-year-old nephew sang it to me. Every time he sang these lines, his face lit up and I could not help but revel in his enjoyment. Fast forward to the present, the Urban Company team is visiting NAZ to conduct Zumba classes for the HIV-positive children, that the NGO supports. Our partner Arti, a Zumba instructor with Urban Company, begins her session.

“Let’s start dancing!”, she says and plays the same song – lean on. The children break into an excited chatter and start to follow her. They sing along “…All we need is somebody to lean on”. I notice the same fervor, the one that my nephew shows, and I revel in their enjoyment. These children are no different.

When Urban Company approached NAZ foundation a month back, the intent was to reach out to the ignored part of our society, a part which is just as important. These children at NAZ tell a simultaneous story of how elitist our society has been to them, but at the same time, how many have come together to help them feel included. The idea of this initiative started with a simple premise, if Urban Company embodies ‘happiness with a clap’, then everybody deserves happiness. After all, we don’t discriminate when it comes to serving all our customers, all of them get the promise of great quality irrespective of who they are.

So began the journey of spreading happiness. Ramchandran Srinivasan – the program coordinator at NAZ, and Urban Company, decided to hold sessions of Zumba with the children twice a week for a month. Music and dance are always an equalizer and hold the power to make everyone feel included. We not only wanted to communicate that but help the children get a fitness regime they would enjoy. And boy did they!

As Ram shares,

“We want to give these children everything that they need and deserve. While we ensure their schooling, diet and care, Urban Company brought happiness to our children with these classes. From just five children on the first day of the class, we saw twenty of them enjoying the sessions in the end. They evidently had fun and also found a great way to get fit.”

Happiness is infectious, it is imperative for it to spread. It wasn’t a surprise that our partner was happy to help when we called her. Arti, a Zumba instructor with an experience of a decade, loved the idea. She shares, “I have been volunteering with NGOs for a while. When Urban Company approached me with this idea, I was thrilled. It seemed like a great opportunity to meet these children and be a part of something so special”

A month of Zumba classes brought us closer to these children. On my first day, as I stood nervously in a corner with the fear of being misunderstood by these honest souls, the youngest tugged my jacket. He asked, “Why are you here?”. And I was looking for a good answer, an answer which did not threaten to make him feel uncomfortable.

But before I could, he said “Never mind! Dance with us!” And I did. Because here’s the thing, these children are not looking for answers or the many reasons for the prejudice they are subjected to. They are looking for happiness, and happiness does not need a reason. It spreads.

Watch Ram and Arti talk about NAZ and share their experience of this activity here.
If you wish to contribute to NAZ or support us in our campaigns of spreading happiness to everyone, write to us at [email protected]

DISCLAIMER: We had to be sensitive to the identities of the children. Hence, there are no faces shown in the photos and the video. We hope for a day when we really would not have to do that.