by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 24, 2008 | sustainability
Yesterday a ex-volunteer dropped by. He had spent a month a year back doing his internship with us. Since he has obtained his degree from a foreign university and secured a prized job in a high profile NGO. He is part of the fund raising team of that organisation.
The NGO is question is steered by a celebrity and hence has a fair amount of celebrities associated to it. It somehow seems politically correct in today’s day and age to be associated to a charity. Charities now are businesses or a bizMess, something I discovered many moons ago. It is not a matter of doing something for someone, but to be seen doing something for someone.
My one rupee a day programme failed because of a lack of understanding or was it simply because I did not find a celebrity to champion it? Anyway it was just a battle lost, the war is still on.
Coming back to the different funding options shared by our friend, I must confess that each one seemed inadequate and totally out of sync with the spirit of pwhy that I value and defend. Some were too onerous, others unprincipled. I was loathe to spend donor’s money on PR blitz or similar issues. And did they really ensure long term sustainability or were just once again short term options needing to be reinvented each year at abysmal cost.
That was not the pwhy way. We would continue our virtual and new tech begging till we found the right option: one that would dovetail into our work and enable it to grow and prosper. One that would include all those who are the heart and soul of pwhy.
I am now convinced more than ever that planet why has to happen. It is the only way to ensure that it is the pwhy team and beneficiaries themselves who steer their fund raising once the planet why is a reality. It thus becomes their fight their responsibility and their challenge and their achievement.
So help me God!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 22, 2008 | Uncategorized
Was it just yesterday that the plight of a disabled man locked for 14 years by his family shocked us all. One did not get time to recover from that news that another horrifying incident was brought to light by a TV channel. Little Manikanandan abused and mutilated body violated the space of each and every home, his bewildered eyes replete with questions begging for answers.
Manikanandan is 11. He is mentally challenged and his family too poor to care for him admitted the child in a government run institution. In the last one year the child was subjected to severe torture, his only fault being that he was hyperactive.
This incident makes you wonder whether the parents who chose to lock their child for 14 years in heir home were not actually exercising a better option.
The plight of mentally and physically challenged persons is abysmal to say the least. The government run institutions are hell holes, and families are often in the best case scenario at a total loss for a host of reasons: ignorance, poverty, lack of knowledge and paucity of valid options. This is a market where demands outweighs supply and moreover returns are nil.
fine day a lady landed at our doorstep holding on to 5 special kids. Thir As I have often said, notwithstanding social mores, special children are images of God and caring for them should be viewed not as an chore but as a rewarding experience. It has now been over 6 years since we launched our special section. Another case of force majeure as one school had been closed without notice and they had nowhere to go. For us it was not a question of debate or pondering we simply knew wee had to give these kids an option. Today there are more then 20 kids and young adults in our special section.
Each has his own challenge and yes some can be violent, others hyperactive, some are extremely slow others moody, some cannot hear, others cannot walk, yet others can barely comprehend what is said to them. And yet hey all form terrific team each one helping the other almost instinctively. They spend the whole day together and have a whale of a time. They sometimes fight and argue but is that not what every kid does.
They love going out together but their favourite activity is undoubtedly dancing which they are willing to do at the drop of a hat. We are never needed to ‘tie’ them up or restrict them in anyway. And we have never felt that anyone one is a impediment or a challenge. Each one of us oves going to their class, actually for me t is a sure way of getting over any feeling of gloom, the best anti-depressant possible.
So you understand why little Manikanandan’s plight made my blood boil. How can children be treated this way? How can any government have the audacity to run a home for special children and treat them in this manner? How come there are no ways of keeping a check on such things? Why did it take a year for this poor child to be rescued?
Valid questions indeed in any normal society but probably futile in a society like ours where collective conscience seems to have gone astray. How can one accept suck things to happen and continue happening as this is not the first incident of its kind and will not be he last. wonder how may Manikanandan’s there are across our land who are suffering the same plight. Yes there will be an enquiry and some one will be made the passing scapegoat. Politicians will get some mileage, there will some debate, even the parents may get blamed and then all will be forgotten till the next incident happens.
Sadly no one will address the situation and find long term solutions. Things will juts carry on. No one will accept the fact that special children are entitled to a life filled with fun and laughter.
Here are some pictures that show you that the project why special children have a ball all the time!
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 21, 2008 | Uncategorized
Nine years may seem sufficient to inure you against all human and humane aberrations. But in a land like ours it is not so, as each time you seem to think you have seen it all or allow yourself to believe that things may have changed in the wake of all the talk you hear around you, something happens to rudely jolt you back to reality.
This is just what happened yesterday as I sat watching TV. A line on the ticker of a new channel said: man locks up mentally ill son in loo for 14 years! It was no gag or joke, it was stark truth and happened in a small town in Orissa. And what is even more disturbing is that the family finds it a better option than sending their child to a hospital. I guess in spite of all better sense, one can understand that as the plight of institutions for the mentally challenged is known to all. When one sees the state of such homes in Indias‘ capital city, one shudders to think about what happens in smaller cities. What is even more disturbing are the words of local social activists: “The parents are very poor and helpless. There is no point in blaming them when there is absolutely no facility from the government for such people.“
This state of total helplessness and surrender is to say the very least demeaning. Not for the victim but for each one of us who pretend to be educated, humane, endowed with a conscience and values, overtly religious. If any one of us can see a human being locked in a cage for 14 years and walk by, then we seriously need to look at ourselves.
When we fist saw Manu we could just have walked by, shut our eyes and heart and mumbled words akin to those above. But we chose not to and in spite of all odds and difficulties we did not give up. Today Manu dances with friends and tomorrow he will have a bed of his own!
And one day, in the not too far future Many will have his home and a place where he will be able to live and work with dignity as long as he lived. That is what planet why is all about and when viewed this way what seems an astronomical amount seems paltry.
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 20, 2008 | Uncategorized
Yesterday was Uptal’s 6th birthday. He is at the women centre and his mom planned a special party. It was on this very day, five years ago that Utpal had his tryst with fire, one that undoubtedly changed his life in more ways than one. His tiny life has not been an easy one. It has been packed with many hurdle, but he has always come out a winner.
For the past two years, Utpal has been in boarding school and lived a normal life, the kind little boys do. No drunken brawls, no night visits to the cop station, no strange men, no hunger pangs. And like little boys he now has his tantrums and his moods, his likes and dislikes: you see he does not have to be the man of the house any more, he can just be a kid. And that is exactly what is it now and one cannot grudge him his new found zeal as he has lot of lost time to make up for.
So we too decided to give him a fun birthday party with presents, cake, his favourite food, and the people who had been with part of his life for the past 5 years: his best friend Kiran, Radhey his old pal, Rani didi and Shamika didi, Dharmendra bhaiya and his mum, one that he loves in his own special way and of course maam’ji! There were some new friends too and we had all a great time.
I am sure that each one of us did take a trip down memory lane, each remembering that one special moment that remains engraved in our mind. I found myself recollecting a plethora of touching times, each one imbued with its own sense of wonder but the one that will always remain engraved in mind is my first real meeting with this incredible kid, the moment he walked into my heart.
The past few years have been replete with Popples moments, each one endearing and touching and even if he may sometimes seem spoilt and even exasperating, just look deep into his eyes you may just see an Angel passing.
share some of the birthday mood here
by Anuradha Bakshi | Mar 19, 2008 | girl child
Is it wrong to help those who are in need of others assistance? was the heart wrenching question a little girl asked softly in a mail that dropped in my inbox.
Natasha and her little family had read the article about pwhy that had appeared in a Singapore paper almost two years ago. They wrote wonderful words of support and set out to collect books for us the children and sent them to us. Then, as it often happens, there was no contact.
Then came a mail from the little girl now 11. I reproduced it as it was written:
I’m Natasha, do u remember me? It’s been more than a year that I’ve not contacted you. I’m already 11 years old and my brother is 9 years old. During the past 1 year, my family has gone through a lot of difficulties. My mummy helped to take care of someone who is not related to us who is suffering from bone cancer. Because of that my daddy decided to divorce my mummy, reason is she has been too focused in volunteer work and as a result my brother and I follow her footsteps. Is it wrong to help those who are in need of others assistance?
My mummy went to Bangladesh last year to do some voluntary work, we will be going with her this June school holidays. Although the past 1 year we didn’t contact u but u and all the children are always in our heart n mind. We have collected many storybooks for your children and would like to mail over to u. Please give me your address so that my mummy can mail to u by courier service.
We have finally come out of our own gloomy days and would like to continue to contribute our assistance to u or other charity organisations. All the best to u and hope u will forgive us for not be able to offer our assistance for the past 1 year.
I read the mail many times. I felt very tiny and overwhelmed. This little child epitomized the essence of giving. Her approach was without fuss, without the jaded words that normally accompany acts of giving, sans the litanies that justify the grounds of abstaining to give. Notwithstanding the terrible ordeals she and her family went through, this little child of God never lost sight of what she instinctively felt was right.
Is it wrong to help those who are in need....remained the simple question that begged for an answer. And I, with all my years of supposed giving was left speechless. This little girl had quietly put my whole life in question, her simple interrogation was reason for deep soul searching on the very meaning of giving.
Natasha’s words are the quintessence of what giving or helping others should be. What we all do pales in front of this. It is easy to give when the time is right, when we are comfortable, when things look up. But not for this child and her little family. They simple give!
I salute the mother of this lovely child as she is the one who has instilled such generosity and love in her heart.
And to you little Natasha I want to say that it is not wrong to help those who are in need. Only very special people understand that, and you are one of them.
