This week (6-10 November) is Trustees Week. To mark this, one of our Trustees, Vijay Samtani, has written this short insight into why he wanted to give up his time to be a Trustee, what it involves and how the experience has been so far.
I first became aware of Missing People about seven years ago, when I worked for Royal Mail. Missing People had set up a partnership to distribute urgent alerts to posties, creating an army of people receiving those alerts and keeping their eyes open. Fast forward to 2023, and I saw that Missing People was looking for new trustees.
By the time I saw that Missing People were looking for new Trustees. I had been a trustee at a smaller charity, Disability Law Service, for a few years, and thought that experience, as well as my “day job” experience in IT, might be helpful to Missing People.
As I’m so new, I’m learning new things all the time. I’ve gone in at the deep end, working with both the finance team and the IT team, both of which, of course, play a critical part in the work we do to help missing people and their loved ones.
Since I joined, I’ve been amazed by how committed, passionate, and brilliant the people I’ve encountered here are. It’s very rewarding for me because I’ve seen first-hand how the right help can be enormously important for those who are vulnerable or disadvantaged – and we know that those who go missing are so often exactly that.
We have launched a regular email so that you can be aware of new missing person appeals and share them far and wide! We are also calling on all Heroes to be the eyes and ears for Missing People on the ground. Your sighting of a missing person could make a difference in a crucial time.
