We set out on a journey of good, we continue to walk it…
We live in a world where the divide between the privileged few and those who struggle for existence is starker than ever before. Even as humanity reaches new frontiers in space, small sums of money deprive a child of education or a patient of access to healthcare.
In the hope of creating positive change in the world, in some measure, One Good Step, was formed in 2014.
Our Philosophy
- One Good Step seeks to be kinder and gentler to those whom life has been harshest
- One Good Step provides hope and creates opportunities for those in need
- One Good Step is an enabler for individuals, groups and entities to play a positive role in society
- We live and breathe our core philosophy, to keep moving forward with One Good Step; we believe that relentless and sustained efforts, done one good step at a time, will collectively and cumulatively, give momentum to positive change.
Our Origin
One Good Step was born out of the passion and zeal of our founder, Amitha Pai, to give life to her purpose of service; a successful corporate professional turned social entrepreneur.
In the early days of the organization, we served more as a bridge between the genuine causes in Bengaluru and the contributors. With a bias towards direct action we soon changed our identity to directly undertake social projects in urban slum communities and rural villages.
One Good Step”(OGS) today, is a unique NGO, dedicated to development initiatives
We Serve
- In two primary areas (so far)
- Education and barriers to education
- Healthcare
- We work in rural areas of Karnataka and urban slums in Bengaluru, where the need is acute, and they are highly underserved.
- All our programs are developed to address the most urgent and pressing needs of the people we serve and are designed with their inputs.
We Collaborate with
- We work together with communities, other service entities that have subject matter expertise to execute projects and corporates to enable funding of such efforts.
- We have also collaborated with the Govt Education departments for school improvement projects and district administrations on healthcare initiatives
- Giving fillip to our efforts, our dedicated volunteers ranging from college students, corporate employees to homemakers have been with us through many steps of our journey.
In a span of just over 7 years we have touched the lives of thousands of children, seniors and differently abled people, in a positively beneficial manner and successfully executed projects on 7 districts of Karnataka, India.
Our journey has given us both immense satisfaction and an insatiable desire to keep traveling….
What started with the first few steps of trepidation 6 years ago, continues today with 170+ steps and counting….
Join us on this journey of good!
Our Founding Trustees and Advisors
Amitha Pai – Founder and Managing Trustee
One Good Step, was conceived as a brain child of our Managing Trustee in 2014.
She was pursuing a successful corporate career for 11 years, starting at Infosys Technologies in a technical role and advancing to the prestigious Young Leaders Program at Aditya Birla Group where she gained exposure to multiple industries in a corporate strategy and marketing functions.
Giving it all up to pursue her passion for service she has worked tirelessly to build the organization, uncover needs in communities and conceive successful projects. Her endless zeal for social development has been the driving force behind the success of the organization.
She comes with an engineering degree from Manipal Institute of Technology and an MBA from ISB, Hyderabad.
M Nagarajaiah – Trustee
He has over 35+ years of experience working on social development at the grassroots levels in Bengaluru’s urban slums. Working earlier at AWAS, an NGO for slum development, he has stood up bravely to all odds and his efforts have been responsible for creating better shelter and housing for over 2500 slum dwellers in the city.
Moving on to found his own organization, Pragathi Charitable Trust, over the last 10 years his mission is to bring the most under-privileged into the mainstream of the society and keep them from exploitation
His experience and depth of knowledge about grass-roots issues has been invaluable to One Good Step as we forayed into communities to address complex issues.
C Ramalingegowda
A successful serial entrepreneur and an experienced marketing professional.
Has 20+ years of experience spanning entrepreneurship, management consulting and marketing.Advisor to start-ups on various aspects of product, marketing, growth and funding strategies.
Has extensive experience in managing consulting engagements in North America, Europe and India for Fortune 50 and Fortune 100 clients in the High-Tech, Enterprise Software, R&D / IT Services, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare, Life Sciences and Consumer Goods industries.
His support and guidance to One Good Step has helped us shape the organization and its diverse projects.
Advisors
Bhaskar C N – Co-founder & executive director at i-POINT Consulting Services Pvt Ltd.
Bhaskar has had an enriching career with Indus International in the USA and with Infosys Technologies Ltd exiting after multiple significant responsibilities as AVP and Head of Strategy Planning for their large Business Unit, Head of Infosys Mangalore Development Centre and Global Delivery Head for a large UK client. He is now at the helm of i-Point consulting, a Learning and Development company based in Bengaluru.
Bhaskar has a Bachelors Degree in Electronics Engineering from Mysore University and a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from Lamar University (Houston, USA). He has diverse work experience in various parts of the USA, Europe and India.
Bhaskar has been our mentor and sounding board, providing guidance and unstinted support for all our initiatives, conceptualizing a skill development program and counseling students in numerous schools.
V Sudhakar – Ex- MD Enmas Pvt Ltd
He has had a long and rich career of multiple decades in the Power Industry, holding significant positions in BHEL. He then went on to establish Enmas Pvt Ltd that has been a trail-blazer caters to the complete needs of the Power Industries and has a geographical presence across many countries of the world.
V Sudhakar has been a guiding force, a tireless source of support to our efforts for the last 3 years and has helped us navigate extremely tough times before and during the pandemic, when our programs were facing several challenges. One Good Step is immensely grateful for his efforts.
Our Collaborations With Other NGOs
Pragathi Charitable Trust – Focused on the welfare of slum children and community development in urban slums. In one of our earliest collaborations we partnered with Pragathi for our “Streets to Schools” Project.
Gramantaraa Trust – Focused on rural development in Chikkaballapura, Karnataka. Our initial foray into rural communities through the “Light for Education” Project and many other fruitful rural interventions have been in partnership with Gramantaraa (“Namma Muthuru” earlier).
Selco Foundation – Focused on increasing solar power usage and penetration. We partnered with them for technical implementation of the “Light for Education” project.
Our Collaborations With Universities
University of Maastricht, Netherlands – Providing internship opportunities to students from multiple disciplines and giving them exposure to developmental challenges.
Besides this formal collaboration we have also offered long-term internship opportunities to Indian and foreign students.
Our Collaborations With Hospitals
Sankara Hospital – Focused on community eye-care. We have partnered with Sankara for the Nanna Kannu project and then extended to community eye-care for seniors.
Kasturba Medical College, Hospital, Manipal – University hospital that provides affordable medical care to poor patients. We collaborate with this hospital for neo-natal and pediatric support initiatives.
Dr TMA Pai Hospital, Udupi – Hospital dedicated to affordable healthcare in Udupi. We have collaborated with them to support healthcare and allied healthcare professionals during the second wave of Covid and have recently piloted maternal health efforts with them.
Our Collaborations With Other Entities and Individual Contributors
I-point – L&D company providing high quality training to corporates and colleges. We have collaborated with them for designing and delivering the Confidence Catalyst Program.
Mamatha M R – Expert educator and student counselor. We have collaborated with her for designing programs and counseling girls in high-risk environments.
In addition to this we have had MOUs with Government education dept and collaborated with the women and child welfare dept, Dept of Health, Village Panchayats wherever required for our projects.