SINGAPORE – A missed interview for medical school ended up changing the trajectory of one young man’s life, leading him to a career in community work.

A regular in the Republic of Singapore Navy after signing on at 19, Mr Narasimman Tivasiha Mani had dreams of becoming a doctor.

At 28, he was called for an interview to study medicine, but missed the opportunity as he was deployed in a submarine – a covert operation he was not allowed to tell the school about.

While waiting for another chance to apply for medical school, he approached Singapore Boys’ Hostel – a rehabilitation centre for young offenders – to do a year-long volunteering stint.

“Three months into it, I realised this is what I need to be doing. I decided to give up my aspirations to become a doctor, to my family’s dismay,” said Mr Narasimman, now 40.

While working at the hostel in 2015, he met Mr Joshua Tay, who was taking a gap year before beginning his studies at Yale-NUS.

Mr Tay had decided to work at Singapore Boys’ Hostel before starting university because he heard it was short-staffed.

While working there, he realised that while juvenile offenders were getting help to get back on track with life while they were in the hostel, support on the outside was lacking.

So he teamed up with Mr Narasimman to continue to engage the boys after they had been discharged from the hostel.

The pair tried to meet the boys for tutoring at a community centre, but many never attended these sessions, so after two years of effort, Mr Tay and Mr Narasimman changed their strategy.

In 2017, they started engaging the boys at their homes.

“The more we engaged these boys outside the hostel, the more we found out about their community, and the more we saw the extent of the need. There are many youths facing significant adversity in the community (and these issues) just aren’t being flagged up,” Mr Tay, 30, said.

To address that, Mr Tay and Mr Narasimman started Impart in 2019.

The non-profit organisation has helped more than 1,400 young people facing challenges such as mental health struggles, financial difficulties, domestic violence and homelessness.

After leaving his full-time job at Singapore Boys’ Hostel in 2020 to focus on Impart, Mr Narasimman went for eight months without a salary, surviving on his savings instead.

In the course of engaging young people, he even paid for some of their needs out of his own pocket.

“It w...