Thomas Chandy - a personal tribute

I have felt sad beyond words since learning of the death last week of Thomas Chandy, the founder CEO of Save the Children India, my boss from 2008 to 2011. Time now to find some, though, and add mine to the now countless public tributes to such a fine person, who achieved so much for children, and who epitomised kindness, compassion and generosity in all spheres of his life.

Death obviously slams shut many doors but paradoxically can prise open many others.

After the deafening silence when he left the organisation in April last year, we can finally now all read, remember and celebrate the numerous achievements as well as the character of Thomas Chandy on the public channels of Save the Children India, the organisation he founded, nurtured, led and served for well over a decade.

https://www.savethechildren.in/news/save-the-children-india-s-founding-ceo-thomas-chandy-passes-away

I have personally loved reading all of the appropriately generous tributes on social media and on the Save the Children India website. It has felt as if Thomas has somehow not just been celebrated but somehow temporarily re-instated this past ten days in death in the role of CEO of Save the Children India, the role that he loved in life with all his heart.

Thomas recruited me as the first Director of Programmes for the then about-to-begin Save the Children India. I worked for and with Thomas for three years from March 2008 to March 2011. I knew already by the day I left India that I would look back on my three years in Delhi as the time in my own life where my own work and life stars were in most perfect alignment. Thank you one last time Thomas for the wonderful opportunity to spend three years with my young family in a country I had visited and loved since I was twenty one, but never lived until you took a chance on me.

More importantly, thank you for the privilege to support you and work with a truly exceptional team spread across India in a fantastic project, to start and to grow a new Indian member of the global Save the Children Alliance. As Save the Children India grew, so did the practical interventions we were able to support in education, child protection, health and nutrition. We responded at scale to significant humanitarian emergencies, such as the Bihar floods of 2008, or the flash flooding in Leh in 2010. We developed wonderful partnerships with countless Indian and international entities, such as the global IKEA Foundation and their team in Delhi.

Far more importantly still, the success of Save the Children India created an ever more significant civil society platform for shaping awareness and attitudes towards child rights in India, and for advocating and campaigning for change. Today, Save the Children India is a powerful and widely known and celebrated force for good, with lakhs of supporters and campaigners, and implementing many crores worth of programmes each and every year.

It has been really special to see all those videos posted this week of Thomas talking to children and staff across India, or giving TV interviews or speeches on so many topics related to child poverty and exclusion. There have also been memories shared of his speaking at the UN in New York, or at the high table of global Save the Children gatherings, pictured with children or with staff and partners across India. For all of us, but in particular for those of you relatively new to the journey, it's easy to forget one simple fact that underlines the scale of Thomas Chandy's CEO achievement.

When Thomas Chandy was recruited as CEO of Save the Children India, the organisation had no funding. No supporters. No staff. No Board. No platform for advocacy. Just an obvious and powerful idea whose time had come (or actually was probably a decade or so overdue) - that India needed its own child rights organisation, its own Save the Children, and that there was no point and no future for the traditional model of International NGOs working in the country. As pertinently, the global Save the Children movement, if it were to remain credible, needed a strong and independent Indian member.

As it turned out, a few of the international Save the Children's exiting from India and handing over their teams and programmes to Save the Children India made it a much harder task than it should have been. Thomas showed huge dignity and resilience during what he termed generously a very tricky labour for Save the Children India, and above all kept his own sights firmly trained on how he would nurture the organisation for the long-term.

When I learned of Thomas' death, and with all my own memories flooding back, this photo below was the first one I looked for. I still think this may have been what Thomas would identify as his greatest single moment as CEO of Save the Children India.

When the organisation was set up in 2008, seed money had been provided by the global movement along with what was then believed to be an ambitious and stretching 10 year business plan for the new charity. The plan was populated by a whole set of KPIs that, when met, would confer what was called "Stronger Member" status within the global Save the Children movement.

As it turned out, Thomas and all of us at Save the Children India were able to hit all of those milestones in a fraction over two years, by May 2010. By coincidence, the same month we did so was when to us fell the long-planned privilege of hosting in Delhi the biennial global meeting of the CEOs and Board Chairs of all the different Save the Childrens.

The achievement and Stronger Member status was announced, and Thomas invited all of us in his Save India team onto the stage with him. In front of his team and dedicating it to us all, here he is Thomas accepting the Stronger Member award from his peer and friend Carolyn Miles, the CEO of Save the Children USA. Truly a magical moment.

For me personally, I am so glad to have been a member of Thomas' first Executive Director or Senior Leadership team. Along with Shireen, Pallavi, Indivar and Irwin, to us fell the privilege of bringing to life and implementing Thomas' vision of an organisation that would take roots and flourish. We know we achieved a lot. At times we worked brilliantly and seamlessly together, at others we fought like cats and dogs. We certainly finessed Thomas' patience and mediation skills.

With respect to, (and asking the indulgence and forgiveness of) the committed and effective individuals who followed all of us, I am going to say that I think we were always Thomas' favorite as well as first group of Executive Directors.

Thomas used to call us his "Crack SLT". As the years evolved, and some cracks did indeed form, this name of his came to feel very well chosen.

In the end, all of us left, people always do. Thomas himself stayed on until April 2018, until a sad and unexpected departure in the most difficult of circumstances, and as a result of which both Thomas and absolutely everyone associated with the charity in India and internationally lost.

There is a beautiful verse from Leonard Cohen's song "Anthem", which even back then, we used to discuss, indeed I built a personal video tribute to one of my departing "Crack SLT" colleagues around the same verse and song.  

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in

Thomas would have been pleased to know that this week all of his "Crack SLT" are back in touch, and we now have a whatsapp group with that very name through which we have been remembering him, and will continue to do so.

Thomas' sudden death has left so many people sad and shocked. A good man, who will be dearly missed. He was not perfect, and nor were those of he worked with in his staff or his Board. But we must try and place our focus not on the cracks, but on the light. There was so much of it.

My heart goes out not just to Monica and Shekinah, and to all his many many friends and former colleagues at Save the Children India. But also to those on his former Board for whom his sudden and tragic death has removed a chance at reconciliation that so many of us admiring their countless shared achievements would have loved to have seen take place in his lifetime. The tribute on the Save the Children India webpage is a good start.

Rest in peace, Thomas, thank you and congratulations on a life exceptionally well lived.

17th November 2019