What can one expect out of a nineteen-year-old boy! Hanging out with his friends in malls or watch movies or play bowling at a club. At 19, Jasper Paul, has transformed the lives of thousands of destitute.
Jasper Paul, an engineering student, was involved in a near-fatal accident in Hyderabad in 2014. His automobile flipped three times on the road, but he, fortunately, escaped with no injuries. It was a watershed moment for Jasper, who was 19 at the time. This very narrow escape was his moment of realization. He counted his blessings and vowed to do something more meaningful with life. After his near-death experience, he recognized his blessings and resolved to accomplish something more important with his life.
Two months later, while driving down the same route where the terrible accident occurred, he came across an abandoned elderly woman on the side of the road. Anyone would have been put off by the sight of her festering wounds, crawling worms, and gloomy weather, but this man regarded it as the fulfillment of his life’s purpose.
After four years, Jasper, a BTech graduate, now oversees four homeless shelters in the city, housing over 120 people and employing 12 employees. He is the founder of the Second Chance NGO, which rescues underprivileged people on the verge of death from the streets. Jasper, 23, has witnessed multiple deaths in the course of his employment. “Several of them died in my arms, and I performed their final rites for many of them,” Jasper recounts.
Following the encounter, the young man recorded the woman, which instantly went viral on social media. “A large number of individuals began sharing the video, and it quickly became viral. We received a call from the woman’s relatives after they watched the video on Facebook after a few days. They flew down to Hyderabad and returned her to her house. And I realized at that point that I didn’t want to do anything else for the rest of my life,” Jasper adds.
In March 2017, asper opened his own shelter, named it as ‘Second Chance.’ Jasper has a team of about 12 people working for him, including a nurse and various non-clinical employees.
“We work closely with the city police department to coordinate our services. Whenever they see a sick individual on the street, it’s usually the cops that call us. Then we go to the place, check their vital signs, and bring them back to our house. We admit the victim to the nearest hospital if they require immediate medical attention. “Doctors and paramedics come to our house for free on a regular basis,” Jasper explains.
I receive a lot of calls from strangers requesting assistance. So what I do is first verify the issue before dispatching my crew to rescue. We get calls from people wanting to save their own family members from time to time, but we don’t promote it. We only take in men over the age of 20 and ladies over the age of 50. I’ve rescued over 600 people so far, and my four homes combined house over 120 people,” Jasper says.
Since the time Jasper began his NGO Second Chance, he has come across a lot of heartbreaking incidents in his life.
“One magazine approached us to feature our work and our organization. So, they went ahead to take photos of me with an elderly woman. This photo became the cover photo of their magazine. I was clicked sitting alongside an elderly woman from our shelter home. After the story got published, I got a call from a woman inquiring about the lady in the photograph. It turned out that she was her mother and her family was frantically searching for her for a couple of months,” Jasper recalls.
Since then, we have started maintaining a record of the details and photographs of the rescued people in the nearest police stations. Moreover, our NGO has been maintaining a complete database with the city police bureau of the people rescued. This has helped a lot of people who approach cops with missing complaints to easily identify their kin,” recounts Jasper.
“If I can continue to transform the lives of even a handful of people for the better, that is what I will continue to do,” adds the spirited young man.
(The writer is the founder of powerfulteachers.com, an organization that works for senior citizens)
Discussion about this post