Chargebacks911 Employees Raise Funds for New Delhi Families
For the last few weeks, Dado Kalem, Director of Quality Management at Chargebacks911®, has been a man on a mission. On a recent trip to India, he was troubled by the dramatic contrast between the luxurious New Delhi hotel in which he stayed, and the crushing poverty that existed literally across the street. He came back to the States with a plan.
“I knew that one person or even a group of people can’t fix everything,” he says. “But if we work together, maybe we can fix something.” The something in this case was one particular family he met in New Delhi. Understanding that what would be a relatively small amount of money here could be life-changing to a family in India, he started a GoFundMe account and started talking to his co-workers.
Corporate social responsibility has always been a high priority at Chargebacks911, and employees rallied around Kalem’s plan. Within a short window of time, they raised nearly $700 that Kalem planned to present to this particular family.
"It’s a tiny step. But it’s a step in the right direction.
It didn’t work out that way: upon returning to New Delhi, Kalem discovered the family had moved out of the slum near the hotel—to where, he didn’t know.
Unfortunately, there were still too many families who were in dire straits. Kalem converted the dollars to rupees and divided it five ways. “We decided to present five families with $134 each,” he explained. “It doesn’t sound like much, but over there it’s enough to support a family for a couple of months.” He went into the slum to distribute the money, capturing the process on video to share with his co-workers.
In the grand scheme of things, Kalem realizes, the act of kindness was a drop in the ocean compared to the need. Still, he remains philosophical. “This isn’t going to end poverty in India,” he says. “It’s a tiny step. But it’s a step in the right direction.”
