Bhavin Shukla

AXA Volunteering

As part of its corporate social responsibility, AXA gives employees three days to volunteer. Employees can choose any charity they want to support. This benefits society, the charity, and the employees, as it offers new experiences that can help them grow personally.

Choosing Where to Volunteer

We have a beautiful garden and the reason it looks nice is because we have someone to look after, I dont really like gardening 😊. Also, if I had chosen volunteering to help remove weeds and clearing plants then that would have set a precedence at home too!

I’m good at teaching and motivating young children, so I thought about volunteering at a school. However, I had trouble finding a connection in Leicester that could place me in schools to help with career advice to kids.

I asked myself what I do well and how I could make a meaningful contribution.

I work as an Enterprise Data Architect in the Data and Analytics area, so I considered offering my skills to a registered charity, the Art of Living Foundation (AOL), to help them with their Enterprise Architecture.

Introduction: Art of Living Foundation

Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar has founded courses that provide techniques and tools to live a deeper, more joyous life. He has established nonprofit organisations that recognise a common human identity above the boundaries of race, nationality and religion. His goal is to uplift people around the globe, to reduce stress, and to develop leaders so that human values can flourish in people and communities.

Gurudev has inspired a wave of volunteerism and service, resulting in one of the largest volunteer-based organisations in the world, with more than 40,000 teachers and over one million volunteers engaged in service projects in 180 countries.

My Connection with AOL

I was introduced to AOL in 2022 and was fortunate to meet gurudev in person during my visit to the Bangalore Ashram. The scale of work that is currently being done by the AOL is phenomenal. The ashram is visited by thousands of people, including devoted followers and many newcomers like me, all there to learn breathing exercises and meditation.

Volunteering with AOL 2025

I was contacted by one of the ashram volunteers recently to help them understand best practices on data architecture. They have a team of more than 100+ experienced IT consultants working full time on their internal IT projects and also delivers IT projects for external clients to help raise funding for the organisation. A number of them are from top Indian Universities e.g. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT).

The Head of IT, Nanda Kishore Kandarpa (picture attached), who lives in the Netherlands, came to meet me for a brainstorming session after I dedicated my volunteering hours to AOL. He studied Mechanical Engineering at IIT Mumbai, the same university I attended and hence we have some common stories to share. He has been volunteering for AOL for more than 30 years! The meet was organised by a friend and ex-colleague, Vaibhav Sawant, who now is a full time AOL volunteer.

It was inspiring to see Nanda’s enthusiasm. He works for himself for just 3 to 4 months each year so he can do seva (serve) for the rest of the time for AOL initiatives. Even when he works for clients, he sometimes wakes up at 5 AM to take calls from his colleagues in Bangalore before he starts his day job.

Despite being one of the most sought-after SAP consultants in Europe, he doesn’t charge for his services to AOL. In fact, he even spent his own money to come to Leicester, reflecting the dedication of AOL volunteers.

Summarising my Learnings from the Interaction

I asked a few questions during my interactions with him and I am sharing my learnings here for everyone’s benefit.

💰Financial Sustainablity

How the volunteers on the project sustain without any financial reward from the AOL?

Nanda reaches out to the donors, some donates furnitures, some licenses for the softwares required, and some of them provides fund. However, the fund received is very limited. Some of the software developers/engineers who are just starting out and need money to support their families receive a very low salary compared to what the market could offer them.

The volunteers view this as Seva (selfless service). They might face financial difficulties, but they are willing to make themselves available for the greater good.

🎯Goal

As the Head of the IT function of a non-profit organisation, what is your goal?

Nanda’s goal is to turn the AOL IT function from cost centre to profit centre so that the volunteering staff can be paid and they can continue with the seva without other external financial struggles.

He wants to setup a world class IT organisation that can self-sustain and can raise fund for the AOL via profit made from the project deliveries. They currently have built a strong capability in the SAP area and in the data engineering space, and his vision is to expand in other areas too.

📚Learnings

If you could share one lesson from your 30 years with AOL, what would it be?

“You may encounter many challenges when trying to deliver these types of initiatives, but if your intentions are good, the universe will help you make it happen. Starting or doing something with the right intent is the key to overcoming every challenge we face in life.”

“You need to have bharoso (faith) in your guru (teacher), yourself and the universe!”

Caught In Providence

I have been in difficult situations similar to “Caught in Providence“. Not in a legal sense, but in the challenging world we live in, filled with struggles that often have no clear reason. Nobody knows why some people are born into privilege or wealth while others face hardships. However, I was lucky to have parents, teachers, mentors, friends, and kind people around me who helped me to reach where I am now.

This write-up is a tribute to Judge Frank Caprio, a fatherly figure who taught us how to be kind to others and how to build an organisation’s culture on the foundation of empathy. It is also a reflection on how lucky I am to have had the opportunity to learn values and ethics from my family during my childhood, as mentioned in “Papa Did Not Praise!“. Happy Father’s Day! , I love You, Dad.

I believe it’s my turn to take on the role of Judge Frank Caprio for the things that are in my range and scope, no matter how small they are, to show my gratitude to those who haven’t been as fortunate as I have. I want to help them find their way out of the challenges they face.

💭My Reflection: “Intent Matters”

I had great time with Nanda and hopefully I have positively contributed to the AOL’s Enterprise Data Architecture. For me, it is just a start and will love to contribute more for organisations like AOL who are working for the benefit of others.

In addition to the three volunteering days that AXA offers, I recently started an initiative to support less privileged GCSE and A Level students by providing free lessons in Maths, Physics, and Chemistry on weekends. I do this because I come from a humble background, I have seen it and have experienced it, and I firmly believe that education has power to change lives.

I sit with a signboard (pictures attached) in the library or a park in areas where A-Level dropout rates are pretty significant. Sometimes, students are too shy to ask for help, other times the librarian doesn’t let me put the signboard up because they think I’m trying to advertise non-existent tuition classes, and sometimes I end up sitting alone reading my books because the students are genuinely disinterested. I often wonder if this will really work!

However, with the wisdom I have gained from Nanda during my volunteering, I will keep going because I believe my intentions are good and that the universe will conspire to do its magic when the time is right. If this one doesn’t work out, another opportunity will come along another day.

Thank you, AXA, for giving me the chance to volunteer, and I am grateful to my teachers who inspired me to share kindness with others.

I have written a few blogs on AOL, you can read it here if you futher interested in their meditation and breathing exercises / program: Sri Sri Ravishankar – Bhavin Shukla