by Anuradha Bakshi | May 25, 2009 | Uncategorized
As I sat this morning wondering what today’s post would be in the light of what one is going through, my mind wandered back to an old post I knew I had written some years back when I was desperately trying to pitch and defend my erstwhile and forgotten one-rupee-a-day programme. Today I find myself coming full circle as I try to make a case for our new sponsorship programme. I fished it out of the wood work! It was simply entitled:
One rupee a day and planet India revisited
one-rupee-a-day was an intuitive thought that had come to my mind way back in 1998 when project why was a tiny embryo… it seemed to be such a perfect solution.. was not India rich in mumbers.. and a rupee was something easily spared..
like all intuitive thoughts it got pushed back in the face of raised eyebrows, puzzled looks and amused smiles.. copious advise about the ways of goodBiz was proffered: donations, funding organisations, fund raising extravaganza, charity sales and much else.. and the greenhorn that iI was had no option than to take the well trodden path.. somewhat ill at ease I must admit.. to my mind this did not gel with what I had stood for and certainly not with India..
the one-rupee-day kept coming back with obsessive regularity… but I paid all the dues to the goodBiz world, and did the rounds of all that was suggested, and to be honest many options worked and pushed project why into a comfort zone bringing success, kudos, praise and even recognition..
but the goodBiz had its own hidden rules, one of them being its fleeting nature.. come on ms.B no one does this forever, you must change with times and adapt to the flavour of the day.. now that was not acceptable.. education is life long and not transitory and one does not leave people midway, one empowers them to carry on… and the solutions offered did not work..
reality hit us as we were pushed out of our comfort zone, more than once and each time the one rupee leit motiv sprung back to life. It seemed to have all the answers to problems. If education was perennial then the funding option we sought had to be one that any Indian could participate in and any Indian could steer..
So if we stand by what we set out to do: establish a model that can reach every child and be steered by its own, then all resources have to come from within. Five years of goodBizMessing had finally taught us that we needed to go all out and make the one-rupee-option a success, beating all odds..
But nothing would have prepared us for what was to ensue: a new discovery of India which no one could have imagined.
We launched a multi-pronged appeal to a wide audience: netizens, people from all walks of life through brochures, personal meetings, telephone calls.. and with the replies and reactions a new map of India came alive.
Indians living away from their mother land, be it students or professionals, reacted with overwhelming spontaneity and unadulterated love for their motherland. Individual responses and collective efforts saw the light and bore fruit at breathtaking speed.. needless to say most of them had never seen project why… There was profuse support from unknwon people across India, more so from the southern and western states… the community and weaker sections of society did come forward with suggestions and contributions..
We started feeling elated… come on India numbered one billion hearts, now finding 4000 should be easy..
But it was not so as we were to realise once again.. the cynics appeared with their unbelievable tales.. India’s capital once again took the lead of this tragic Act of the play.. what amazed us the most was the fact that people who had seen project why did not find it in them to write a cheque for 360 rs.. let alone get us contributions from friends.. everything possible was said to deter us, the trophy going to an upmarket restaurant owner who felt that adding one rupee to a bill may lead him to a litigation ten years hence..
Does one give up… the answer is No.. the cynicism is so deep that it has to be set right… if the goodBiz is in such a mess then why should a child in need of help pay the price… it is for us to reinvent ourselves and wipe out misconceptions..
As I look at this new map of India, where the common denominator is its heart and ability to feel compassion for the other, I see boundaries extending way beyond its geographical entity… and if the little hearts are few within its own land then somewhere someone has gone wrong..
The one-rupee-a-day has to work… to set matters right and the last shred of doubt I had was wiped away this morning as I flipped through a magazine which had an article on the children dying of malnutrition in Maharashtra with a photograph of a baby whose ribs you could count but whose eyes still help hope..
No you do not give up on planet India..
Yes we have come full circle today as we seek 100 sponsors from the world over.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 23, 2009 | Uncategorized
I should be jumping with joy. All our class XII students have passed their examinations and this for the 8th year running. But before I could get down and savour the good news a mail dropped in my inbox informing me that one of our main donors would not be able to meet their monthly commitment for they next 4 months.
It was a huge blow and I am completely shattered. How would we manage as without that particular donation there was no way we could survive.
If I were running a business I could have locked the door and lost the key while I licked my wounds in some remote corner. But when you run a show like project why you do not have the luxury to do that. Which door do I lock and who do I send home. The little ones who come every day and spend a few hours reclaiming a lost childhood; the special ones whose only few hours of dignity are those they spend with us. Do I send my primary kids back and live with the guilt of knowing that some of them would drop out of school and become child labour; and what about the secondary kids who have just done me proud! And the foster care kids whose home is project why!
No, I cannot send anyone home or shut any door. Were I to do so, I would never be bale to look at myself in the eye. I will have to snap out of my gloom and muster all the courage I can to reinvent myself . I will need to get out of the comfort zone I had sunk in and retrieve my dusty begging bowl and beg till it hurts.
I had always been weary of big donors. They tend to make you complacent and make you forget the true essence of the work you sought to do. Running an organisation like pwhy is fist and foremost a lesson in humility. And to remain humble you need to remember that your work depends on the compassion and empathy of others. It is a one to one equation. If you forget that you risk losing everything. I wish my one rupee a day programme had worked, or rather that I had given that programme my all.
But it is never too late. We have launched a sponsorship programme that we hoe many will join. It has to be a success; 800 little smiles depend on it! So help me God!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 22, 2009 | Uncategorized
As I climbed up the stairs to my office I peeped into the creche. I was taken aback at the number of kids present. It seemed far more crowded than usual. I waved everyone a cheery hello and moved on. I was a little angry as I had time and again told the staff not to admit too many kids in a class.
Upon reaching my office I called my programme in charge and asked her why there were so many kids in the creche. She simply told me that this was only for the summer months. Apparently the parents of many of our regular creche children had pleaded with us to accept some siblings for the duration of the holidays. The reason: their homes were very hot and the older siblings had nowhere to go. All my anger fizzled out. I knew hat they were talking about: tiny windowless rooms with tin roofs that turned into ovens under the scorching sun. I had nothing left to say, anything was better than that.
The pwhy classroom is not five star. But it is large, has fans and even an inverter that ensures that fans runs even during outages. Their is coll drinking water and often if the kids are dirty or too hot, the staff gives them a cool bath. Many of the homes do not have water in summer.
When the heat is on, life is not easy for anyone but in slums it turns into a nightmare. At least at pwhy, the children can beat the summer, albeit for a few hours!
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 19, 2009 | Uncategorized
Our little foster care kids are home for their summer break. I went to fetch them at the boarding school and before we could leave I was given the grand tour!
This is my classroom said one, while the other tugged at my shirt with a come to my classroom. We went to each classroom and collected every one’s summer home work. Then I was taken to the hostel and everyone showed their little bed. The bigger boys who share a room even showed us how they slept! The excitement was palpable, the smiles larger than life and you could see that all the kids loved their school. The ride back home was replete with stories. What was high on the agenda was the picnic at the amusement park and the water rides and the yummy ice cream.
I listened to my little slumpups and took in every word they said. It was intoxicating as it vindicated everything one had faced and fought for. Looking at them and listening to their happy babble made me realise that we were truly on track.
by Anuradha Bakshi | May 15, 2009 | Uncategorized
The three children in this picture are siblings. They have just joined our crèche. They all hail from Nepal and have recently come to Delhi. When I fist saw them I asked why the elder ones had been admitted to the early education programme. They seemed far too old for it and should have been enrolled in a proper school.
The answer was simple and poignant. The children did not speak or understand Hindi. They only spoke Nepali. There was no way they could attend any school. What my staff proposed was to slowly teach them Hindi and then perhaps a year or two down the lone get them admitted to a proper school in class II. They felt that in the crèche, even though they were bigger than the rest of the kids, they would be able to slowly grasp and learn a new language. I simply agreed.
The plight of children who migrate from other parts of India or as is the case here from another country altogether, is often tragic. The parents often flee their homes for economic reasons – a flood, a dry spell, a natural disaster – and come to a strange city. The father does manage to get a job and the rest of the family has to learn to cope in new surroundings. Older children are the ones who suffer the most as they cannot integrate any school and are often left to their own devices. They are rarely accepted by other children and often become the butt of ridicule. They thus grow up lonely and rejected. No one really cares about their future.
The three kids in the picture may be able to break free and integrate a school, make new friends and build their tomorrows, but what about the thousands and more who will never get a proper chance and will have to learn to survive on their own. Some will join the ranks of child labour and be seen washing dishes at a tea shop or cleaning other people’s homes. Others may fall prey to predators. Such is the plight of children who migrate with their families to big cities.
As I sat this morning wondering what today’s post would be in the light of what one is going through, my mind wandered back to an old post I knew I had written some years back when I was desperately trying to pitch and defend my erstwhile and forgotten one-rupee-a-day programme. Today I find myself coming full circle as I try to make a case for our new sponsorship programme. I fished it out of the wood work! It was simply entitled: