The 24th episode of the ‘Amazing people’ series by News Karnataka was held on Friday July 16 at 6:30pm and hosted the founders of the NGO – ‘Imagine’
The programme was hosted by CA Valerian Dalmaida, Mentor, Spearhead Media Group with Rajesh Sequeira as the co-host. The three speakers in the discussion were Melisha Noronha, former Human Resource Professional and now a home-schooling parent, Vinod Lobo, former journalist and now a communication professional and Nitin Kumar, Human Resources professional.
The imagine Trust has been changing the lives of people and helping the needs through various projects for the past eight years. In this session, the speakers talk about their journey and what lies ahead for this trust.
Vinod Lobo
My journey has always been to reach out to people
I was a journalist and have been in the industry for the past 9 to 10 years and later became a communication professional in Bengaluru. I studied Journalism to trigger change and to take up such causes. When I started working, I covered human interest stories that would spark and change and was away from other stories like crime and so on. Seeing a change through my work gave me a gratification and later I realised it as a calling to do something meaningful and get to the ground and start doing the work.
The beginning of ‘Imagine’ Trust
We were already invested in the idea of working for a cause. Once we all settled in Bengaluru, we wanted to do something bigger. ‘Imagine’ used to do small projects in schools but at one point we realised that people questioned us and asked who we were. Then we realised that we needed a structure and hence we quickly got imagine registered eight years back.
We are not just three of us. Everyone in the team has brought something beautiful to the table and that together forms the Imagine Trust. For us each person brings the strength we need to work. I have worked with other NGOs and I have seen what has not gotten right with them and I am really happy that our entire team connects well together.
We always believed that we have to bring a lot of people into doing good things and inspire them. Most of our projects were into making youngsters do a lot of good work. In the weekends we used to call up volunteers and go to places where we would plant trees or do something positive. In one of our projects, we recorded books for the visually impaired and in another we went to school and taught them the need to live green lives. The current project we have got is that we are supporting prisoners’ children because they need special attention. The next big project will be the imagine clothes bank where we are going to start a centre which will be open always and where the poor can come and pick their clothes with dignity and respect.
Covid second wave called our attention to important things
One of the important things was mobilising beds for people in Bengaluru. Melissa and I were part of another helpline to make beds available. We were actively campaigning for beds for the people who were genuinely poor. We have also worked in the hospital and volunteered there too. I had a lot of support and I believe that when you do good work, the world comes together to help you.
News Karnataka being the first media channel to come and give us the platform in itself is wonderful. We hope this will bring more people to do good things.
Melisha Noronha
Pandemic taught us that life is short
HR professional for over 14 years and last year I felt like I had to do something meaningful. I knew I had a calling to do something more. One thing that 2020 and 2021 has taught us is that life is short. There is no time to waste and you only have one life and you live it today. Even my kids are into the NGO and we dont want them to learn about poverty and reality of today as a statistic. We wanted them to see these things up close.
We are all blessed with an amazing family that helps us to work on these matters. I enjoy the space that I am given to do what I want to do and all of this is the support which is unconditional. People come forward to help us and that reassures that there are good people around.
Launching projects under Imagine
It takes a lot of ground work to launch one project and we all participate in the process. Each project is unique so a lot of different networks have to be created. I programme manage all the projects here. Over the years we have built a good network and people recognise us for what we do and they would come to us for help. We do a thorough background check before associating with anyone and we only associate when we are convinced that this data is genuine do, we go ahead.
Nitin Kumar
Taking corporate experience into social service
Being HR professional for the past 15 years, my corporate experience has indeed been helpful during my journey working in the NGO. There has been many CSR activities which have been brought to many locations and even the journey itself has made us realise the effect of such initiatives and inspired us to create a journey called as Imagine Trust. The journey has always been about creating an impact, reaching out to the people. Our structure has been similar to that of a corporate body and hence it has helped us.
Covid times and reaching out to people
Distributing food kits were a major programme we used to do. We would work tirelessly till midnight to make sure that the genuine needs like beds medicines and so on reach the people. If we can at least save one person’s life due to our effort then it makes a big difference for us. We have partnered with apartments and other NGOs also to make sure that food kits reach the people.
Future plans of ‘Imagine’
Our main priority right now is to turn the imagine cloth bank into a big success. We have a plan to expand it and we want to make 20 to 21 clothes banks. We also want to expand our education sponsorship and reach the needy people and give free education to them by collaborating with educational institutions.
Join this WhatsApp group to volunteer on weekdays or weekends.
https://chat.whatsapp.com/LVfdMtGPzsJ7d8rBpjC4zY
