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Impact Stories
Elder Care Trust
Vijan Trivedi, Project Coordinator
Elder Care Trust is a Non-Government Organization founded in 2014 with a vision to support the vulnerable elderly. They are dedicated to providing continuous support and care, including basic day-to-day living support, medical / non-medical support, awareness about Geriatric issues, and psychological support to the elderly. They understand that "Today’s young will become tomorrow’s old," and seek to assist those elders who are physically dependent on others for their daily living and to provide a life of dignity during the final years of their life. They do this by offering counseling, companionship, and physical care.
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Sanjeev Kumar
Hotel Manager - Roots Corp (Ginger Hotels)
Sanjeev has been with Ginger Hotels since 2011 and has almost 16 years of experience in the hospitality industry. He is now the city hotel manager in the Vadodara branch. Sanjeev believes that just by being Indian citizens, we are privileged and it is our duty to give back to society. With this motto, Sanjeev took on this project as a 6th-time Proengager. As part of the younger generation, he wanted to help the elderly who are abandoned and left behind. While looking for projects that were related to the cause he wanted to contribute toward, Sanjeev found this project that also matched his skill sets and wasted no time in applying to it.
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Omkar Ganjkhane
Assistant Manager - Tata Consultancy Services
Omkar has been a Tata Employee for a decade and works with the CSR department at TCS for the past 4 years. He has also been associated with the development sector and has worked on projects to uplift the marginalized youth from tribal and lower caste communities of India. This way he interacted with young minds on a regular basis. As a first-time Proengager, Omkar wanted to work with the senior folk of our society to understand the world from their perspective in terms of their individual and community needs, and the challenges they face. This project checked all his boxes and he applied for it right away.
The Story
The Project
The nonprofit’s primary goal is to help needy senior citizens from across the country. Elder Care Trust takes in those who are completely bedridden and can no longer afford to fend for themselves and don’t have anyone to help them either. The nonprofit wanted to classify and record the most prominent problems the elderly face in India. As they serve seniors from across the country, knowing the issues that plague them such as diabetes or loneliness. This knowledge will help them design their programs to help their beneficiaries with their specific needs and equip them with the right aid to be sent.
The Journey
Once the volunteers were introduced to each other, they quickly created a WhatsApp group to facilitate easy communication. They mapped out a plan for their project and ensured that they followed a structure so that everyone was on the same page. As both Omkar and Sanjeev had packed schedules, and so did Vijan, they caught up via calls on weekends. In case someone couldn’t make it, they’d reschedule, but they made it a point to not exceed their no-contact period of over 15 days.
Since this was a research project, most of the volunteers’ work needed to be done via the web. But since this was relatively a new and niche topic, information was hard to come by. The volunteers solved this challenge by relying on the information available around them in the form of their own sources and their practical knowledge. In Omkar’s case, he went the extra mile and visited an elderly home trust (Hiramani Trust) that was associated with his son’s school. In this way, he was able to extend the scope of his research. Sanjeev too had worked with a nonprofit that was associated with helping the elderly in Jamshedpur.
Throughout the project, the team made sure to update their progress on their WhatsApp group and made sure to get the nonprofit’s feedback on their work. Even at the time of handing over their research to Vijan, they made sure to check with him in case they had missed something.
The Challenges Faced
The volunteers and the nonprofit faced no challenges during the course of their project. Their communication was always crisp and to the point, and they maintained a schedule and stuck to it.
The one operational challenge that the volunteers would have had was classifying the issues they detected into the right category. But they didn’t have a hard time understanding what was required of them and got right to work.
The Result
This project gave Elder Care Trust quality and researched information and a good insight into the issues that senior citizens face based on their geographical location. Now, the nonprofit seeks to reach This is very important to know as it helps the nonprofit understand and predict what kind of problems they will be dealing with and can focus on finding solutions.
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