Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Honour for institutions, individuals from diverse fields

Third edition of Good Samaritan Alert Being Awards presented


09/09/2019, SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,CHENNAI


Abhishek Poduri, Tata Trusts, receives the organisation icon award from former National Security Adviser M.K.Narayanan. B. JOTHI RAMALINGAMB. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

Nila, 34, is an inspiration to the transgender community. She declared her sexual orientation in the second year of her B.Pharm degree. Her family disowned her and she took to begging to pay her way through college.

Now, she runs the People Health Action and Research Management (PHARM) Foundation. Her father is helping her promote her organisation, she says.

Bharaa, 24, is a gold medallist in ECE from St. Peter’s Engineering College in Avadi, Chennai. Though selected through campus placements, companies did not send her appointment letters.

“I attended 25 interviews and was rejected all the time,” says Bharaa, who was born a boy. In college, she conducted sensitisation programmes for teachers and students and overcame challenges.

During a six-month internship with PeriFerry, an organisation that works with the transgender community, she was called for an interview by SPI Cinemas. Now she heads its subsidiary SPI Edge.

“Talent has no gender,” insists Bharaa, who wants to become an entrepreneur. I need unavu, udai and iruppidam (food, clothes and a shelter). I got them, and now I am independent. My parents did not come to my convocation, but now my mother speaks to me,” she says.

PeriFerry was launched by Neelam Jain, who found her calling when the international bank that she was working with rejected several transgender persons who were better qualified. Her fieldwork revealed that the gap was in financial indpendence. PeriFerry has so far placed around 90 transpersons in various companies.

13 organisations honoured

On Sunday, PeriFerry was among the 13 organisations honoured for their work with the Good Samaritan Alert Being Awards.

The awardees included well-known institutions such as Tata Trusts and individuals working in diverse fields such as rehabilitation of beggars, sheltering HIV/AIDS-infected persons and children with mental disabilities.

The third edition of the awards was presented by former National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan and Commissioner of Police A.K. Viswanathan, among others. Mr. Narayanan said such acts impacted people’s lives.

“This is the kind of inspiration we require to bring humanity to everyday life,” he said.

Mr. Viswanathan praised Alert for skilling people who can respond to emergencies, given that close to 95,000 people die in road accidents every year in the country. Rajesh R. Trivedi, managing trustee of Alert, said the ctiy now had 400 first responders and it would soon touch 1,000.

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