By 
Feeling anchored to your town due to certain circumstances and still want to work your way in life? Most people get down to starting their own initiatives while living in the ‘homey’ town, but, is it just a result driven by circumstances? Starting an initiative requires much more – the clarity of what you want to do in life, the lucidity of how to approach your goal and the un-swayed willingness to do whatever it takes. One must make sure to keep a keen eye for their surroundings and find something that needs dynamism or change.
Not long back, we started ‘Teleupchaar’ with the goal of providing health care and other medical facilities to those who have limited access to these basic necessities in life. The implementation of our concept was brought about by the culmination of a series of thought-provoking ideas, a lot of brainstorming, and relentless efforts. It also called for in-depth research about how we wanted to go forward with our initiative. We made it a point to talk to a lot of people who already have their hands in such initiatives. We learnt about telemedicine and how it could help bridge the gap between the patient and the doctor through the medium of technology.
Starting an initiative requires creativity, because, it is your dream and nobody else can do the thinking for you; persistence, the art of moving forward even if you encounter inertia; and also resilience. People often tend to give up as soon as they face even the slightest hindrance. The novel coronavirus struck us with a blow in the face as the healthcare resources became increasingly devoted to tackle the pandemic.
The choice between letting go and holding onto your goal serves as the ‘inflexion point’ between the doom of an initiative or the burgeon of it, the key is to simply maintain your composure and sail through it! We decided to help ease the burden of the medical fraternity by making use of ‘telemedicine’ as a tool for providing free of cost consultations to those affected by the virus, arranging for sponsored medication for the needy, and arranging for blood donors as well.
Analyzing your growth and weaknesses, while staying open to change is extremely important. We analyzed our strengths- it lied in the fact that we could bridge distance between the patient and the doctors by means of technology, which could play a key role in breaking the chain of human interaction while the entire nation faced a complete lockdown. We accepted the change in our medium of working as we could no longer manage field trips amidst such chaos; we shifted to online talks, online trainings and events to educate people about how to fight the pandemic and urging them to get vaccinated and be the responsible citizens that the country needs.
Once an initiative is in the running, it takes tremendous amount of inputs to keep it afloat. The apt marketing skills, sales techniques, emotional quotient to understand your viewer of consumer engagement and much more. Sharing your story and work with your clients will help inspire others along the way. We made it a point to influence as many people around us as possible by the medium of social media websites like Twitter, Instagram etc. Continuous posting of content, our initiatives, talks with experts and much more! This is exactly how we grew from a team of four students to a family of more than twenty five today!
Lastly, grabbing the right opportunity at the right time is what makes you carve your way out into the market. We saw an opportunity back in 2018, we made a move, faced numerous challenges in our journey- travel difficulties, frequent disappointments, no references before setting up meetings and extensive apprehension, technological barriers, lack of sufficient funds and much more; but, this did not deter us from our goal; and today, we are glad to be helping save hundreds and thousands of lives.
Written by Bhavya Sudhakar ([email protected]), a volunteer at Tele-Upchaar and also a freelance content writer. For more information about Tele-Upchaar please visit our website www.teleupchaar.com or check out our Instagram handle https://instagram.com/teleupchaar?igshid=vs4amjkzbv7i
