103: Project Mumbai: Harnessing kindness to build India's kindness capital - In conversation with Shishir Joshi Founder and CEO Project Mumbai

ShownotesIn the midst of all the doom and gloom, here is a heart warming story and wonderful initiative that taps into the ‘kindness bone’ of people. My guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast this week is Shishir Joshi, a veteran journalist and the Founder and Chief Executive of the award-winning not-for-profit Project Mumbai (www.projectmumbai.org) a public trust striving for social transformation through initiatives of scale.Mumbai, is the city of dreams for millions of Indians. Its a city I spent over a decade in the city and fell in love with it, its spirit, its generosity, its ability to let people be, for everyone to dream, for everyone to be who they were, for being a safe city for women working crazy hours. I loved it for its indomitable spirit and humanity but also its street food (nothing to beat Mumbai street food). It is also the city where I met with Shishir (a journalist at that time) as a PR pro. 

Coming back to the podcast, according to Shishir, the idea of “Project Mumbai” is founded on the belief that every human being has a kindness bone - especially Mumbaikars (people who live in Mumbai). And he wants to harness that to make Mumbai the ‘Kindness capital of India’. Project Mumbai represents what a successful model for what public, private, people partnerships should look like, showcases how we can achieve social transformations through collaborations and make our cities more accessible and safer for those who are the most vulnerable.

The tagline for this brilliant initiative is equally brilliant and colloquial “Mumbai ke liye kuch bhi karega” which losely translates to ‘I will do any thing for Mumbai’. The tagline beautifully captures the essence, the spirit of the city. And that not just why this volunteer-led non-profit, was selected by the UN SDG Action Campaign as one of the global recipients for the Solidarity Award, a special call from the annual UN SDG Action Awards 2020 (It is was 1 among 3 selected from India among 50 in the world)

Listen to Shishir Joshi speak about building cohesive teams, volunteers and their role during COVID, his favourite projects, proudest moments, biggest learnings, the future, and how cities could tackle some of their biggest challenges through similar initiatives and what it means to be a catalyst for positive change. To know more about how this incredible organisation is harnessing the kindness of people and collaboration to deliver on over 100+ successful partnerships towards building and creating a more inclusive city head to the podcast. 

Episode TranscriptSudha: Hey Shishir, Good afternoon. Thank you for being a guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast today. Wonderful to have you here and see you after a very long time. Shishir: Thank you so much, Sudha. And yes, I really love the title of this podcast that you have. It's very interestingSudha: Brilliant. So let's get started with a quick introduction to who you are and what you do. Shishir: Oh, it's going to take a long time. Sudha: I can believe that. Shishir: I'm Shishir Joshi and I head a not-for-profit called Project Mumbai, which may have been founded,...