Rest Of My Family

The whole of humanity is one big family but somehow, over time, we have lost that connection with one another. Our struggle for individual survival has taught us to draw a circle of 'me and my' around us and we consider only certain people, places and things as our own. By the very design of this paradigm, the rest of the people, places and things in this world fall outside this circle of love and compassion.

And, in this societal race of securing more resources for ourselves and our loved ones, most of us have forgotten our relationship with one another at large. There are some of us that have fallen out of everybody's circle of 'my' or have been left too far behind in the race to survive. This project is an attempt to connect back, re-discover our relationship with and understand our responsibility towards the larger family that we are a part of -- the rest of our human family. Hence, it is titled 'Rest of My Family'.

We, Piyush Goswami (documentary Photographer/filmmaker) and Akshatha Shetty (writer/journalist), have been travelling for a few years into the heart of rural India understanding, experiencing and documenting different cultures, social issues and common challenges faced by the people all across the country.

We are a story driven social-work-through-art not-for-profit organization. After preliminary research we travel to neglected rural and tribal areas and document the social scenarios, challenges and general life of individuals and communities. These stories and documentary films are then published in order to raise awareness and to start a dialogue in public space about these issues. By showing various social issues to be a direct result of our selfish/competitive paradigm, we wish to encourage/support individuals to shift towards to a more collaborative/co-operative attitude and world. This is a part of our awareness efforts.

Apart from documentation we also identify ways in which their lives can be improved and empowered on various fronts.

After which we source required funds from our funding partners, agencies and extend necessary support to the individuals/communities in question through the most effective way with our local regional NGO partners.

On February 3rd 2016, as a part of #DriveForChange, the first campaign under Rest Of My Family project we embarked on a drive through rural India non-stop for an entire year. This was made possible by a successful crowd funding campaign.

Over the year we have documented various communities and issues they face. Through photo stories and video documentaries we will work towards raising awareness about various issues and communities we have met and spent time with.

We are also on track to initiate and complete projects in the verticals of rural healthcare infrastructure, education, solar electrification, farmer development projects and water access projects across the regions- Karnataka, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam. We are on course to identify further projects in 2017 apart from monitoring and developing existing projects.

Find more details on our project here: http://igg.me/at/restofmyfamily/x/5395024

Find us on
Twitter: @RestOfMyFamily
Wordpress: restofmyfamily.wordpress.com
Instagram: @restofmyfamily