by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 11, 2005 | Uncategorized
A mail dropped by this morning. It simply it said:
I too want to help the slum children in our Hyderabad city, and as a first step started with a nearby slum in the outskirts. I now understand the uphill task that it is, but I won’t give up.
The main problem is the motivation. How to do that? How to keep those children off the street , to the gambling( oh there are so many versions!) the fights etc..? How to convince the parents to send them to the free teaching classes?
It was from someone who had written four years back seeking information about our work. I first thought I would reply the mail in the customary manner, but as I sat down to I realised that the words conveyed had a far deeper meaning for us at project why..
First of all it meant that a milestone had been crossed as we had moved from those who began asking many ‘whys’ to one who could now answer the hows. And to me personally, it was a validation of my often misconstrued objective of making pwhy a model that can be replicated. And if our experience can help someone wanting to reach out to children, then I am entitled to my Eureka today.
What I would like to tell our friend is that the first step is the hardest one… often one wants to but the desire never gets translated into action..but once the first step taken, once you have locked eyes honestly with the first child, there is no going back.. you just have to remember one thing: you cannot solve all the problems that surround you, but even if one life is changed, it would have ben worth the effort.. we took the first step in November 2000, never looked back and have a fair track record as proof of our success.
Now to come to the specific hows mentioned, the answer is that there is no single rule. Remember that you are doing this work because children are on the streets, because they gamble, because parents do not understand..
Even five years down the line we still face the same problems and find solutions specific to the particular situation as we are in a land where individualism is celebrated and hence no one solution works. You can only find the right solution if you have assessed the situation correctly. Many a times we have been shocked by things once we took the time to find out. In some cases you may fail but that should not deter you. You just need to be patient, forget your ego and remember your objective. Sometimes you may even have to befriend the local goon, use humour with the kids telling them that if they want to be bad then they should aim to be an educated Don… You have to accept to enterhis world first, before you pull the child out of it..
You just have to wear down your detractor of the time by using very Gandhian methods. It is during my work in the slums that I understood the sagacity of Gandhi.
There are times when you may have to compromise; that is often the case when you deal with parents, so readjust your timings, accept to look after the younger sibling while the elder one studies.. And somethings you will have to accept quietly, hoping that the next generation will understand..
But never give up. The children have paid far too much for the mistakes of us adults, ranging from ignorance to callousness.. It is time we made it up to them.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 10, 2005 | Uncategorized
Nanhe has a smile to die for… and yet does he have a reason to smile, one wonders…
The youngest of five children, he was not even given a name, simple called nanhe..the tiny one. Nanhe has multiple disabilities. When he landed on planet why he could barely hold his head. The innumerable scars on his head were sufficient proof of the number of falls that child had suffered. Incontinent because of impaired kidneys, Nanhe was also often the butt of ridicule and repugnance.
Nanhe came to project why a few months back and has become an important part of our special section. As he is carried out of Sitaram’s blue vehicle, we are treated to his special smile, a moment we look forward to every morning. Nanhe participates in all activities and is even starting to take a few halting steps in spite of his deformed feet. And yet his pain is far from over as he has been diagnored with kidney and bladder stones and needs emergency surgery next week to clear a blockage that is causing him severe pain.
Nanhe has an infective joie de vivre, but as I watch him every morning I wonder what this child’s tomorrows are going to be.. and I feel totally helpless.. we will deal with one problem but another will appear and even if we heal the body, what hapens next, Nanhe can never lead a normal life..
Nanhe lost his father and his mother barely manages to feed her family, one in which three children have disabilities. A brave woman indeed but with all odds against her..
These are moments when one cannot call logic to the rescue. Some will say karma, but whose karma, the mother’s or the little child’s?
And yet everything in little Nanhe’s demeanour is impregnated with a desire to live.. so what we can do is make those days as happy as possible … and maybe, just maybe, nanhe is there to show us that life is worth living… provided you do things right
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 9, 2005 | Uncategorized
It was a very special afternoon on planet why..
At 1 pm the children of the special section were ready to receive their guests. There was a sense of palpable excitement as their classroom got ready for the show: a big screen, a LCD projector, a young indian astronomer and the senior primary and secondary girls. Over 50 people crowded in the little room where Pranjal was about to take them to a journey across the solar system…
A motley crowd it was where difference was the uniting factor. People no one would have put together to watch such a show. Yet they sat as the msyteries of the universe got unravelled by this young scientist who intuitively knew how to reach every single mind, with simple words and stunning pictures so that each one, could travel and dream for that one moment in time…
One again planet why had conjured its magic… as for that one hour all differences were left outside and only the joy of learning remained..
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 8, 2005 | Uncategorized
Mili died last night.. as quietly as she came in to our lives …
She found us when we were hurting, and adopted us. She put up with all our tantrums and ways whereby we humans decide the way our animal friends should live. She delighted us with innumerable antics and filled the empty space with joy.
But she was a child of the wild and could never forget that. She fought the tomcat, and attacked birds to our misplaced horror. She put up with us as we tried to domesticate her.. Then one day she was all grown up and needed to follow her instinct. A huge court of admirers she had and we were quite helpless.. Some felt she should be let free, but she always came back.. An uncaring adult even called her names.. was that the day she decided that this world was not for her..
But the harm had been done once again by adults who do not understand. She had got used to us, to the comforts she got and had forgotten some of her survival skills. Two days back she was hit by a vehicle and came back howling to what had a become home. We took her to the vet who said she was just shocked and would be allright… We tried to nurse her back to health but she had decided otherwise…
We found her inert body… her free spirit had flown away.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Dec 7, 2005 | Uncategorized
When the kids of sudhar camp aka potty nagar were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up the answer was: teachers, doctors, firemen, policemen…
Now the parents of these children left their homes to eek out a better living in the city and do menial jobs: rickshaw pullers, vegetable vendors, household servants, small shopkeepers then how and how can their kids dare dream otherwise..
This was the reaction of a visitor from another land.. with malice to none I would like to ask a simple question: does not one see children of workers become doctors in their homeland..
Come to think of it, maybe that is where the tragedy of our land lies: the labels we stick on people that stiffle their future. So the son of a domestic worker will remain that even if he becomes a CEO! That is probably the modern day avatar of the erstwhile caste system.
We at project why dare to dream and teach our children to do so.. if they cannot fulfill their dream, they can fulfill it for their children…and the road is one: education, the one possession no one can steal or take away from you..
India will change when quality education is imparted in each and every school, and that can only happen when our modern rulers accept to do it, when NFEs and parallel systems of learning are done away with…
And have you ever thought that in the dream the child expreses lies the hurt he has seen: and if a sudhar camp kid aspires to be a doctor it may simply because of all those who died around him because no doctor was there to help, or if he wants to be a policeman it is because of the helplesness he felt as a tiny tot when policemen humiliated his father in front of his eyes..
I do hope that out of this anger and hurt comes out the will to break invisible barriers and fulfill impossible dreams..
Children have a right to dream, so please do not take away that right from them…
