When volunteering becomes you!

I was at lunch with a friend the other day and we had a very animated discussion about the work that the Pain and Palliative Care Society does. I was telling him about the 30, 000 volunteers, nearly 50% of whom are trained and skilled who have changed the way people die in in Kerala. He had trouble understanding the demography of the volunteers? Were they people who already had jobs? Were they students? Bored housewives perhaps? What makes them tick and what motivates them to be with the infirm and dying day in and day out? Surely, not all of them get a special calling to be society’s messiahs! Good questions, all. I then told him the story of Ahmed Koya.
Ahmed Koya is an auto driver in Calicut. Like all auto-drivers, he spends the whole day speeding around the dusty lanes of the city transporting people from one end to the other. He also, like most auto-drivers in India, works overtime almost on a daily basis to make ends meet and give his family a decent living. Ahmed is also an active volunteer for the Palliative care movement in Calicut city.
He likes to talk to his passengers he says. “Sir, there is a patient near by my house who is paraplegic and bedridden. Could you please help him to buy a Wheelchair? Is it possible for you to sponsor a child in that family to meet his educational expenses?” Many travellers in his auto may have heard this request from him several times. Ahmed Koya never hesitates to talk about palliative care and the need of the suffering family he cares for with the passengers he transports in his auto. When someone expresses his or her willingness to help, he links them directly to the patient, adding another link to the chain.
His ability to reach out to his passengers provides many of his patients who he supports money to buy medicines, medical equipment and wheelchairs. “Patients don’t only need medicines and treatment; they need several other things also. For example, while undergoing treatment in the hospital and suffering the trauma, pain- they need a quilt; not the ordinary quilt, but the quilt of love- this is what we like to provide to them” he says with compassion. “I am an ordinary auto driver and don’t have money to spend, but I have an intent to help those in my community who need help”, he continues.
By the time we were through with lunch, I think I got another volunteer for this wonderful movement! :)