Indian Trustees

Trustees of The Baale Mane Trust

The Baale Mane Trust is overseen by five trustees. The trustees meet monthly and receive a report from the Manager, who is also a trustee, and the Assistant Manager who acts as secretary to the meetings. Meeting agendas include matters relating to policy, the day to day running of the Baale and fund raising.

Mary C.
Managing Trustee and Baale Manager

I grew up in Bangalore and have from a very young age been concerned and active in working with disadvantaged groups in my community. When I completed my graduation in 1997 I started working in an organization called Social Service Guild. I was tutoring poor and dropout children; was giving more awareness on community health and different illnesses in Bangalore city through this organization.

I then started working with the Concerned for Working Children where I had a very good experience and gave dedicated service to selected slum communities. I was a teacher at a non-formal education centre.

My next role in 1998, as a social activist took me right across south India promoting child rights; conducting workshops with child experts with different organizations and acting as a translator. I was also working at night with street girls under a rehabilitation programme that provided de-addiction services and ran workshops for addicted children.

In 1999 I took part in participatory research on Urban and Rural community issues and started working in the Paraspara trust. This involved leading a government project on male participation. At the same time I was coordinating the activist team of the Child Rights Action Forum in the organization.

My role was at the level of associate director and I was a state level committee member on Right to Food campaign.

In 2000 I was the founding manager of a rescue shelter for girls in Yeshwanthpura. I have been with my girls through four moves and a lot of development. In 2007 the Baale Mane Trust was formed and in 2008 we moved to our permanent site in Gopalapura. We now have 65 girls in our loving home.

As our older girls begin to move to the city to learn I look forward to the next stage of development.

K C Venkatesh
President

Mr.KC.Venkatesh is a social activist from Coorg. Born in a farmer’s family he completed his graduation in Arts. He moved to Bengaluru in search of employment and started working in an Industry. During his tenure he initiated a co-operative and union for the betterment of workers in the factory. Later he joined Bangalore Labor Union to organize workers in the factories and hotel industry.

While active with the union, he was attracted by an NGO working with child laborers and served nine years in the NGO to promote child rights. In the year 1995, he visited Israel and Egypt for a study on “Structural Adjustment Policy And Unorganized Workers” for 3 months and later completed a training on personality development at National Labor Institute in New Delhi.

In 1995, together with friends he initiated an organization called PARASPARA TRUST to work on the issue of street children, child labor and promoting child rights. Gradually, the organization extended its work to cover women rights and human rights in Bengaluru city and in Karnataka State. He served as the Executive Director of PARASPARA TRUST for over a decade helping it to achieve Karnataka State Awards in 2006 for best organization to ensure child and women rights and again in 2007 for ensuring women rights. With his zeal for organizing people, Mr.KC.Venkatesh has led many Campaigns like State Alliance for Education-Karnataka (SAFE-K).

He is currently President of a number of organisations: The Trade Union Co-ordination Committee, Bengaluru, Paraspara Multipurpose Co-Operative, Paraspara Educational Trust, and a Trustee in Paraspara Trust, Bengaluru.

Rajan Narayanan
Treasurer

Rajan is presently promoter Director of SecondAvenue, an advisory and consulting company to encourage, mentor and nurture small and medium-sized companies, start-ups and first-generation entrepreneurs to scale their business to the next level. Second Avenue also provides consulting and high end training to large corporate and MNCs.

Prior to this, Rajan was a Senior Vice President at MindTree Ltd and led the industry verticals of Retail, Media & Entertainment, Publishing Research & Information Services, Government, and Construction & Realty. Prior to this he was responsible for IBM technologies group, ERP group and the global relationship with IBM.

Before joining MindTree in 2005, Rajan was a founder-promoter of a software company in Bangalore, India, providing AS/400-related specialist services. As the COO and Vice Chairman, was responsible for strategizing, lending technology direction to the company, deliveries and pre-sales activities. Prior to this, was the CEO of a Chennai-based 100% EOU IT services company where I handled offshore projects as early as 1983.

Rajan is widely travelled and has vast exposure in working with and supporting customers in varied industry segments in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. He was extensively involved in leadership development and other internal training and enablement programs in all the companies that he was associated with.

Indira Raghupathi

Indira Raghupathi is a post graduate in Statistics from the University of Chennai. After an early stint as assistant professor of Statistics in Meenakshi College, Chennai preferred to be a house wife for a while after getting married to K.Raghupathi an investment banker by profession at Bangalore. Thereafter she joined him in his business and oversees the stock and share broking activity of the firm KR Securities P Ltd which is the member of Bangalore Stock Exchange Ltd. She also holds the directorship in the group investment banking firm Magna credits ltd, Bangalore.

Indira was initially associated with Paraspara Trust for over a decade and was part of the team which founded Baale Mane and has been associated with Baale Mane since its inception spearheading their various initiatives over the years. Currently apart from other activities she is involved in mentoring the older girls of Baale Mane.

She has a daughter, Preeti,aged 31 married settled in US and a son Pradeep, aged 24 based in Bangalore.

Rashmi Hegde

Rashmi has been in the development sector for the past 20 years. She has worked in leadership positions with many organizations and her strength has been in Project Implementation & Management. Additionally her capabilities in Institution Building have enabled organisations in the development field to address issues of planning, implementation, conflict resolution and relationship management.

Rashmi is a post graduate in Social Work from Roshini Nilaya, University of Mangalore. Her father, Dr. A. Govindraj Hegde, a general practitioner with a social conscience has contributed to the rural areas he has worked in for the most part of his service. Rashmi”s husband is Mr. Ranjan Shetty, a banker and trade union leader. Their son, Pratik, is studying Bachelors in Engineering at the Bangalore Institute of Technology. Rashmi has been associated with Paraspara Trust for many years and has been involved with Baale since its inception.

Through years of hands-on experience with development issues, Rashmi has built a strong repertoire in the areas of envisioning, planning, and implementation of development programmes.

Her intuitive yet methodical approach to work has contributed to initiating projects in new locations as well as putting robust programmes to monitor and review systems.

During her work, she has been involved with the Government, including representatives from the executive and legislature, premier research institutions and international donor agencies and major corporations.

Through all of Rashmi”s experience in the social sector she has supported many organizations expand the scope and intensity of their work. Her experience of working with a business consultancy, as an HR professional has enabled organisations to build on her knowledge from both the development and corporate worlds.