It was a classic textbook case for Ashish Goyal, a student in his final year of medical school: A young boy exhibited fevers, chills, cough, rattling and congested lungs, and signs of dehydration. The boy—who had pneumonia—didn't require any extraordinary treatment. He simply needed a standard course of antibiotics and admission to the hospital to treat his dehydration effectively.
But it was the winter of 2002, Goyal was working in a slum of Mumbai, India, and he was about to be frustrated, yet again, by the financial, cultural and social factors that often interfered with patients receiving effective treatment. In this case, Goyal's patient was a child laborer who toiled in a sweatshop 14 hours a day, embroidering cloth with gold and silver threads. He was brought in by an adult supervisor whose chief concern was getting the boy back to work. Medication was expensive; proper follow-up was time-consuming. Sadly, Goyal was discovering, "sometimes the treatment of a disease isn't enough to treat the real problems faced by Mumbai's slum-dwelling community."
Volunteering for one month in the slums of Mumbai through the Niramaya Health Foundation, Goyal had expected his short trip to be an educational experience. He would gain some new skills, learn about the state of health care in India, and observe how the poorest of the poor obtained medical treatment. Instead, that month transformed him. He realized that he couldn't just be was an outside observer—the need for help was so great, he could actually make a difference. Goyal was inspired to do more: "My one month experience has now become a life-long commitment to service."
The start of something new
After returning home to the United States, Goyal decided to spend his first year out of medical school in India, working with the NHF to reform clinics and create a new clinic for child laborers. As the new venture took off, he was determined to do more. After all, the NHF still needed to recruit a staff of volunteers. So in July 2003, Goyal incorporated international voluntarism into his plans by creating the Alliance of Volunteers for Service, Action and Reform. The title's acronym, AVSAR, wasn't a coincidence—the word means "opportunity" in Hindi. And what an opportunity it was—eight months later, the first volunteers were already arriving in Mumbai.
After returning home to the United States, Goyal decided to spend his first year out of medical school in India, working with the NHF to reform clinics and create a new clinic for child laborers. As the new venture took off, he was determined to do more. After all, the NHF still needed to recruit a staff of volunteers. So in July 2003, Goyal incorporated international voluntarism into his plans by creating the Alliance of Volunteers for Service, Action and Reform. The title's acronym, AVSAR, wasn't a coincidence—the word means "opportunity" in Hindi. And what an opportunity it was—eight months later, the first volunteers were already arriving in Mumbai.
Above left: Dr. Ashish Goyal treats a patient in the Niramaya clinic in Mumbai.
Above right: Dr. Goyal works with children through AVSAR.
Above right: Dr. Goyal works with children through AVSAR.
Still, Goyal and AVSAR weren't content with just helping the NHF. AVSAR has since grown, in both numbers and scope, and its mission has expanded and evolved with the organization. AVSAR is now focused on improving the future of health care in India, and it has the formation of relationships (particularly extended partnerships with NGOs) at its core. It does so by providing immediate service through its volunteers and by creating long-term, sustainable relationships with its partner non-governmental organizations in India. AVSAR aims to increase access to health services for the underprivileged and to establish grassroots connections with NGOs to inspire voluntarism in members of the worldwide Indian community and within India itself.
By any standard, this little group has helped a lot of people during its short lifespan. In 2004, more than 30 AVSAR volunteers worked in India, providing much needed assistance to seven carefully-selected NGOs. Amber Naresh, a medical and public health student at Tulane University, volunteered with AVSAR in September 2004. Working with Apnalaya, an NGO focused on empowering the people in Mumbai's slum communities through education, government-assisted infrastructure development, and health services, Naresh found a way to leverage her unique strengths. She focused on those taboo subjects, sexual growth and development education, with adolescent girls. "I developed a curriculum whose ultimate goal is to reduce anxiety associated with unfamiliarity with the physical and emotional changes that occur during the teen years," she says. "I hope this knowledge will also help girls and women to make informed decisions about their bodies. I hope it will make them more likely to take an active role in deciding when to get pregnant, when to seek health care." True to AVSAR's mission of building sustainable relationships, Naresh's project is a legacy of sorts; it continues despite her return to the States. She hopes that the project will grow and develop with new AVSAR volunteers in India. Naresh plans to return to India to do more volunteer work and feels that her experience with AVSAR provided a foundation for incorporating service into her long-term professional goals.
Something for everyone
But AVSAR's volunteers aren't just drawn from the fields of public health and medicine—they come from a variety of backgrounds, with experience in business, information technology and computer science. And Mumbai is certainly not lacking opportunities for these altruists. For medical students who want clinical experiences, working in a clinic serving child laborers offers the chance to observe how physicians can practice medicine with severely limited resources. Volunteers in the public health field looking for a broader, more comprehensive view of health care may choose to volunteer with an NGO focused on adolescent sex education or work with another organization to improve early childhood preventive medical care. AVSAR also hopes to provide its partner NGOs with volunteers who can help the organizations improve their infrastructure and function more efficiently. Thus, volunteers of every stripe can offer their organizational, artistic and design skills to assist NGOs create everything from an efficient records system to educational brochures to web sites. And as AVSAR grows, the organization hopes to add opportunities to work with NGOs at different sites throughout India.
But AVSAR's volunteers aren't just drawn from the fields of public health and medicine—they come from a variety of backgrounds, with experience in business, information technology and computer science. And Mumbai is certainly not lacking opportunities for these altruists. For medical students who want clinical experiences, working in a clinic serving child laborers offers the chance to observe how physicians can practice medicine with severely limited resources. Volunteers in the public health field looking for a broader, more comprehensive view of health care may choose to volunteer with an NGO focused on adolescent sex education or work with another organization to improve early childhood preventive medical care. AVSAR also hopes to provide its partner NGOs with volunteers who can help the organizations improve their infrastructure and function more efficiently. Thus, volunteers of every stripe can offer their organizational, artistic and design skills to assist NGOs create everything from an efficient records system to educational brochures to web sites. And as AVSAR grows, the organization hopes to add opportunities to work with NGOs at different sites throughout India.
And while the program emphasizes the volunteers' service work over their comforts, the volunteers are irrevocably changed by their positive experiences. Meenakshi Verma, AVSAR's program director, first became interested in volunteering thanks to childhood visits to India with her family. After spending a summer in India as a public health student working with an NGO, she was certain she wanted to go back. Verma chose to return to India with AVSAR "because the organization [was] new and growing, and I wanted to be a part of that." Her time in Mumbai has been particularly rewarding, and the people she's met have indelibly impacted her life. While working at the Don Bosco Shelter for street children, Verma encountered a young boy who needed to go to the busy, understaffed government hospital due to a swollen arm. Verma accompanied him, and they bonded over his plight. Fortunately, the young boy's arm was not broken, and he did well. Now, whenever she sees him at the shelter, he says, "See, Didi, my arm is OK!" It's been rewarding, she says. "My experiences have been great. Even with its normal ups and downs, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else right now."
While the boy who inspired Goyal to lay the foundation for AVSAR never received the proper treatment he needed, Goyal takes pride in the fact that AVSAR is working to prevent such a travesty from happening again. Now a resident physician in medicine and pediatrics, he has high hopes for his project. In February 2005, the program debuted a new offering—the ability to send non-resident Indian physicians to India to share their experience with physicians practicing there. AVSAR has become a registered nonprofit organization in the United States, and it's also on the path to becoming a registered charitable trust in India. The organization hopes to raise $80,000 in donations this year, which would potentially affect 15,000 individuals in India through service provided by AVSAR's volunteers. The program also plans to recruit and eventually send 500 volunteers yearly to India by 2008.
AVSAR's unique focus on establishing relationship between its volunteers, the people they serve, and the NGOs with whom they work ensures its success. AVSAR set out to be a program that encouraged volunteers to become invested in India's future; it is well on its way to accomplishing that goal. Verma hopes the AVSAR experience attracts others the way it appealed to her. "I knew I wanted to be part of a program that helped others experience the joys and challenges of service in India. We hope the opportunities we provide our volunteers will translate into relationships that last a lifetime."
—Sarita Warrier
Photography: Courtesy of AVSAR
More Information
AVSAR
back to top
nirali@niralimagazine.com
privacy statement