Every step counts: Lavanya’s changemaker journey

This story was written by Lavanya and edited for length and clarity. 

I am Lavanya R from New Delhi. My experience in living in Delhi has shaped me significantly and exposed me to the diverse cultures that surround me in the monuments, street food, and traditions. It also equiped me to deal with various kinds of people. This, I think, has helped me greatly in communicating with people for my organization- Tele-Upchaar. 
 
Interacting with my housekeeper and hearing her saying that her family has to travel many kilometers to receive basic healthcare treatment made me wonder about the diverse social realities that are present within our country. Whenever I visited Vrindavan I observed people walking long distances on the road. I initially thought they were traveling for a pilgrimage. After hearing my housekeeper’s story, I stopped and asked them their reason for travel and realized that many of them were from rural areas and they were traveling to avail primary healthcare facilities in urban areas.

My team and I immediately started looking for solutions when we came across the term Telemedicine. To gain hands-on experience, we researched the telemedicine units set up by RKMS and Tata Trusts in Mathura. We observed the functioning of the units, the groundwork that is required to ensure efficient working of the unit, and the problems faced by them. We started by giving our inputs to the manager of the project and were happy to see our suggestions implemented. Encouraged by this effort, we visited Fatehpur Sikri where Ekal, a philanthropic organization, was implementing dental hygiene through the use of technology. We further gave our suggestions and learnings from researching the units in Mathura and have provided the idea of implementing telemedicine. 
  
With the Covid 19 pandemic, telemedicine posed to be a solution to avail healthcare services. We put our research to use and decided to implement telemedicine in our own way. We reached out to underprivileged old age homes and people that live in suburban and urban slums. I co-founded Tele-Upchaar which aims to provide primary healthcare services. We have consulted with over 150 patients and have various doctors on board such as a general physician, orthopedic, gynecologist, physiotherapist, alternative medicine doctor, dermatologist etc. in addition to providing consultations with doctors we also hold webinars, fundraisers, awareness drives, and medical camps. Our collaborations with various organizations also help us to expand our reach and ensure that we achieve both quality and quantity.  
 
My team has been my greatest support and I truly believe having a support system in your team can make or break your organization. They have been with me from the start, as we brainstorm ideas together, we have discussions about various ideas that we bounce off of each other. There are challenges in every organization, whether it be running out of ideas to expand our venture or getting funding, but a team can work through these challenges and make sure that different viewpoints are considered and implemented.  

With every consultation that we do, I feel a sense of accountability and gratification. Hearing the people, we consult with pleasure with our work, encouraging us to put our best foot forward. The number of people you reach out to gives an indication of the nature of work that you are doing, but for me it’s the uncle and aunties laughing with us, treating us like their own, reaching out to us. An instance that made us all feel gratitude was when we held a fundraiser for a hit and run case and eventually seeing the survivor walking again and his sister reaching out to us frequently and asking us how we are doing makes us feel that we are actually making a difference to someone and encourages us to continue to make healthcare accessible. 

With Ashoka’s message of “everyone a changemaker” implemented, I believe it will help us create an ideal world where everyone is looking to make their surroundings a better place. All the stories you might read of changemakers should make you feel like you can do it too. All of us started small and had the ability to make change by identifying something we were passionate about. Creating change through young people is the best solution to all the problems that face the world and if we can make a difference to society, so can you.