Drive to help

Meet the volunteers of Agal Foundation, who have rescued and rehabilitated hundreds of destitute men and women in the city

Team Agal is happy to volunteer. Photo: R. Ragu

Forty-five auto drivers and 10 taxi drivers form the core of Agal Foundation, an NGO that has been rescuing and rehabilitating the destitute in the city. It all began in 1995, when S.M. Venkatesh, the founder, met Selvam. “I found him on the streets of T. Nagar. He was mentally ill and physically in a very bad condition too,” recalls Venkatesh.

Venkatesh was employed in a courier service back then and barely made money to make ends meet. But he decided to do something for Selvam. “I bought two bars of soap, and a shampoo, bathed him in a friend’s car shed and disinfected his wounds,” he says. Selvam recovered miraculously. “He started walking!” smiles Venkatesh. That marked the beginning of his lifelong commitment for the destitute.

He has rescued hundreds of people from the streets and admitted them at rehabilitation homes. This includes the mentally ill, children from broken homes, and the elderly left uncared for by their children. Vasanthi, auto drivers Dharman, Velan, Saravanan and Raja, advocate Udaya Kumar, Muthukrishnan, Surendran, Charumathy, taxi driver Ramesh… Venkatesh made a lot of kind-hearted friends along the way who joined his cause.

Today, he has a reliable network of auto drivers in the city who will drive the destitute to orphanages whenever they receive a call from Venkatesh. “They also call me up when they see someone suffering on the streets,” he says. Agal’s is a coordinated set-up that also gets rescue calls from people in the Police Department. Also, Venkatesh, who currently works at the Secretariat, ensures that he submits memos to the police station in the jurisdiction of where the rescue happened as well as the rehabilitation home.

Each of them in the team has unforgettable rescues. Vasanthi, for instance, recalls rescuing a mentally ill pregnant woman. “This is how she looks now,” she says, extending a photo of a healthy-looking lady. “She gave birth to a little girl called Angel,” she smiles.

Udaya Kumar, who has been part of Agal for 12 years, will never forget the elderly man he helped rehabilitate. “It was approximately 12.30 a.m. when Venkatesh called me for assistance. I had seen the

thaatha on and off on near Arumbakkam and was glad to help in his rescue.” It was raining heavily that night; but despite it all, they managed to save a life.

For socially inclined auto drivers such as Raja, Agal is the perfect platform for helping people in need. “Auto drivers are not respected. They are seen as ill-mannered and rash. There have been instances when I’ve taken accident victims to the hospital and have been asked if I ran over them myself.” But Agal earns him respect and the confidence to act without reservations. “That’s what I take back, I don’t expect anything else,” he says.

Auto driver Dharman too says that he volunteers for Agal for the satisfaction he gets when he sees that even a little effort on his part can save a life. “All of us want to do something to help the abandoned.

But we don’t know how to do it. It sometimes makes all the difference to seek the help of someone for the right course of action.”

Ask anyone at Agal and they will tell you that they spend their time and energy to help people because of the aathma thripthi (satisfaction) they get. Says Venkatesh: “This is our involuntary response to a problem.”