Slice Of Life: I would like to volunteer during disasters till the end of my life

I hail from Tambaram and got married a month ago. I work in the Human Resources department of a private firm. However, my passion is creating awareness and imparting training on disaster management, especially during floods. Apart from work, I spend most of the time taking classes on surviving floods and how to rescue people during such times. The thought first came to me in 2005 when I was in Class 12. When the Indian Ocean tsunami hit the State the previous year, scores of people endured immense hardship, but there were only a few who came forward to help them. That encouraged me to get trained in disaster response by attending classes. Later, when I was in college, I used to take leave to travel to the places that were hit by floods so that I could help those people. Over the years, I have travelled across the country to help people. Now, I have joined the disaster management team. Recently, my four of my friends went to Kerala with relief materials to help the flood-hit people there. During weekends, our team would travel to different schools and colleges to encourage students to come forward to volunteer during floods and also give them basic training. I believe that our group will get larger in the future and will be able to encourage more youngsters to volunteer during disasters. I would like to continue doing this till the end of my life.