Visakh Ramachandran is a French language trainer by profession, and beyond Franchophiles, he is known as the administrator of the FB forum “India For A Change,” which was started in 2009.
The forum has been involved in many social initiatives, the latest being “Let’s Give Campaign — Phase II”, which Visakh kickstarted in 2016.
As part of this initiative, a request was made on the FB forum for funding notebooks that could be given to students of government schools.
The response was overwhelming. In two years, over 1500 children have benefited from this campaign. Visakh credits the contributors for the success of the campaign.
When I first met Visakh in 2011, he seemed to have lost his faith in humankind. He said he was trying to retrieve this lost faith.
Around the time, he had tried to organise a blood donation camp with a social service organisation; the response to it was lukewarm.
Slowly, he found his faith in humanity being restored. He was able to crowd-source ₹2.5 lakh towards the treatment of a child suffering from Thalassemia.
During the Chennai floods, he was able to mobilise many volunteers through the Forum and was actively involved in distributing clothes and other essentials to those severely-affected by the disaster.
With the help of a few friends he travelled through the city’s bylanes and managed to provide relief where help had failed to reach.
Visakh is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. The name of the FB Forum derives from a populat saying of Gandhi — “Be the change you wish to see”.
Visakh’s initial acts of kindness kick-started while he was yet in school.
Vishak, a resident of Kodambakkam, has been involved in social service since his school days.
He had knocked on the doors in his neighbourhood to collect money for the Prime minister's national relief fund to help victims of the Gujarat Earthquake.
He treasures a letter from then Prime minister A.B Vajpayee. His cherished possessions include letters from Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton.
(Reeja Tharu is a French language trainer who does a lot of social service in her leisure)
