Residents and Staff of Dignity Lifestyle Township Adopts Village Mangaon
 As an integral part of our residents' daily programme at Neral, engagement in activities-as-a-group occupies a significant psycho-social role. With this goal, a pilot group from Dignity Foundation had visited the neighbourhood as early as January 2006, three months before the opening up of the township to residents. The group had identified village Mangaon as the first village we need to adopt by virtue of its nearness. Subsequently, it so happened that the entire housekeeping staff also came to be recruited from the young boys of this village. This has given a holistic flavour to the exercise of residents' engagement with meaningful activities.
The first group-visit to village Mangaon kept postponing, thanks to incessant rains. Every time we planned to go, the thick black June clouds would threaten us from undertaking the 2 km trek. Ultimately, one fine morning on June 27, 2006, the group decided to take the plunge, rain or sun, and it was the best decision we had taken. Because what we saw and came to know about life in villages was touching, to say the least. Neat little houses, tidy lanes but laced with water-puddles, little tapris (kirana shops) with a PCO, curious but smiling residents welcoming  us to their homes, everything looked very manageable in terms of size and numbers. We came back after visiting the school, balwadi, panchayat hall and one of the villager's residence.
Our visit was promptly followed by their return visit the same afternoon with a charter of requirements for the school, neatly typed and computerised. We quickly found a sponsor to fund the Rs.1.89 lakhs of essentials for the school (for the first time I realised how much easier it was to raise money for children as against the cause of ageing!). On the Independence Day function to which we were given a grand invitation to visit Mangaon again, some 300 adults and children had gathered and a great amount of interactive pleasantries were exchanged. The programme ended with a presentation of a 'charter of demands' that would make Mangaon the model village in Raighad with the help of Dignity Foundation.
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