Passion for Life #GivingTuesday#India
(Posting a series of success stories from the compilation The Project Why Stories 2000-2016) Indian society continues to treat disability with indifference, pity or revulsion. Low literacy, school enrolment and employment rates as well as widespread social...
Not the India I want to live in
This picture is not the LOC. It is not an incarceration centre. It is not a prison. It is not a loony bin. This is my home! This the wall that separates us from our new neighbours! I seek your indulgence today for writing a very personal post. I ask it in the...
We push them in. Please don’t push them out #GivingTuesday#India
The Delhi government, while inviting applications for admissions to nursery, kindergarten and Class I, has imposed an upper age limit of 4, 5 and 6 years, respectively, on applicants. It is so easy to make 'laws' for children who have neither voice nor vote! And it is...
Angel in disguise #GivingTuesday#India
(Posting a series of success stories from the compilation The Project Why Stories 2000-2016) “All God’s angels come to us disguised” said James Russell Lowell. Utpal a.k.a Popples, and Outpal to all his friends is a force to reckon with, and a great...
Chandan Play it forward #GivingTuesday#India
(Posting a series of success stories from the compilation The Project Why Stories 2000-2016) Chandan came to Project WHY in 2002 as an electrician. He lived in the community of Giri Nagar, where our original centre was based. The Project was in search...
Bindass Babli #GivingTuesday#India
(Posting a series of success stories from the compilation The Project Why Stories 2000-2016) When Babli first came to Project Why in 2004, she was a bright-eyed, feisty girl; what some Indians would call Bindaas, meaning carefree and confident. She loved books and...
Anita the power to say ‘NO”! #Giving Tuesday#India
(Posting a series of success stories from the compilation The Project Why Stories 2000-2016) Anita’s relationship with Project WHY started in 2002, when she started studying as a young girl studying in Class 3. Her father comes from Bihar and moved to Delhi in...
“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon.” #GivingTuesday#India
“At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since" wrote the inimitable Salvador Dali. Dreams are never too big. Dreams are never too small. Dreams are dreams and dreams come true if...
I am a part of God’s wonderful creation #GivingTuesday#India
Use the skills that I have got. Do not focus on what I have not. Of course, I am aware of my limitation. Yet, I am a part of God’s wonderful creation. William E. Lightbourne A recent article brought once again the terrible plight suffered by mentally challenged souls....
Love is in the air #GivingTuesday#India
Today is Valentine's day. A day to celebrate LOVE! A day to remember what love truly means by going beyond the pink hearts and red roses! A day to take a walk down memory lane and reminisce about all the love stories of our lives. I have been blessed with many, each...
True beauty is reflected in the soul #GivingTuesday@India
Called it synchronicity but came across the word UGLY in two different contexts recently. The first was a touching article about a woman who had to bear the ignominy and hurt of being called the ugliest face on earth in a post that went viral and the other was as an...
Smiles in custody #GivingTuesday#India
A little girl was crushed to death by a vehicle last week. She lived in a shack under the Nehru Place flyover. Her family is part of the posse of beggars that live there. It is a spot I pass often en route to Project WHY and have been interacting with such children...
Empower them to say NO! #GivingTuesday#India
The recent incidents of sexual molestation in Bengaluru have once again brought to fore the reality of gender biaises and the stranglehold of patriarchal values in across society. Molestation, rapes and all form of sexual abuse are a power game wherein the perpetrator...
Zero-teacher, single-teacher… #GivingTuesday#India
Whether born in a mansion or a slum, or even on the street, every child born in India has the Right to Quality Education, a right guaranteed by the Constitution. Sadly nothing is further from reality. A recent article entitled 'Lessons in Negligence' is a...
Let it be the year of the child #GivingTuesday#India
A New Year has dawned. Let it be the year where children are heard. Let it be a year when children find their voices. Let it be a year when each one of us walks that little extra step for a child in need. Recently Nobel Laureate Kailash Satyarthi launched two...
Remembering Manu #GivingTuesday#India
For the past 6 years, come January and my thoughts go to Manu who left us all lost and bewildered on a cold morning in January 2011. I must admit that on that fateful day my feet faltered and I was close to giving up. You see Manu had been the one who showed me the...
2016 revisited #GivingTuesday#India
2016 has been the Year of Transformation for Project WHY! It began quietly without fanfare and ended with a bang. The mood on day 1 of the year was bittersweet. Everything was on track and all centres were running like a clockwork orange. The children were happy and...
A Xmas miracle
Angels do not have wings! Sometimes they appear in the form of a spunky 8 year old. I was wondering what my Xmas message would be this year! How could I know that it would come to me in a sealed enveloppe. The enveloppe contained a card and a message! This was...
A blessed day #Giving Tuesday#India
Tuesday, November 29th 2016 was a blessed day. One had waited long years for this moment. One of the most cherished vision of Project WHY has been to have children from both side of the spectrum meet and learn from each other as Project WHY believes that it is...
Tell me a story #GivingTuesday#India
For those born before the advent of TV, the lessons best learnt were from stories told to us by parents or grandparents or discovered in books found in every child's room and read with avid passion. The art of story telling is ancient and prevalent in all cultures....
Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen everyday. #GivingTuesday#India
Everything is going to be all right. Miracles happen everyday wrote Adrienne Posey. I second that unequivocally! In the past 16 years of running Project WHY, I have seen them happen and lost count. Another one was conjured in the past 48 hours. I was woken up on...
Back for the day#GivingTuesday#India
It was lovely to have Shalini back for a 'day' to join the Project WHY annual picnic that she has never missed for the past decade. This year she almost did as for the past months brave Shalini has been nursing her ailing mother. The often difficult stubborn special...
The spirit behind Project WHY #GivingTuesday#India
Ramchundur Goburdhun 15 August 1911- 29 November 1992 Most know us as Project WHY only. A few know that our legal identity is the Sri Ram Goburdhun Charitable Trust. And not many know who Ram was and yet if not for he, there might not have been Project WHY. Ram or...
Let us burn schools down #GivingTuesday#India
The burning of schools in Kashmir vindicates the belief that education is the most powerful agent of change. Destroying a school destroys the future of children forever. Education is a powerful tool. The question lies in the way you use it. In the early years of...
What this world needs is a new kind of army – the army of the kind.” #GivingTuesday#India
Like any teenager, Utpal often calls from boarding school to ask for something or the other usually food as at his age kids seem perpetually hungry or for a book of some kind. So when he called last week we were expecting 'chips' or 'cookies' and were very...
The bucket baby #India
India celebrates Children's Day today. There will be celebrations across the land. But for some, like the little fellow in the picture we now fondly call the 'bucket baby' it will be a day like any other. This little fellow was born around the time Project WHY...
The PT exam question #GivingTuesday#India
PT as we all know or at least presume stands Physical Training and is a high school 'subject' in India. It would be reasonable to again presume that it means playing games, training for individual and team sports etc. Not quite so in the Chacha Nehru Hindi High...
Another form of gender bias #GivingTuesday#India
An interesting article appeared in the Wall Street Journal recently. It is entitled: Why the Vast Majority of Women in India Will Never Own a Smartphone. The emerging new middle class will purchase all sorts of things ranging from washing machines to even air...
The seven vegetable pizza #GivingTuesday#India
Way back in December 2007 we celebrated Xmas at the women centre. One of our resident at the women shelter was Christian and she told us about the cakes her mom made and we ordered many for the party. Sophie one of our volunteers wanted a full scale celebration so...
What Bob Dylan meant to our generation #ThrowbackThursday
The news of Bob Dylan getting the Nobel Prize for Literature was one of the best news coming my way in a long time. For those of us who were young and impressionable in the sixties Bob Dylan was an intrinsic part of our lives. I write this slightly personal note today...
Warriors of Air #GivingTuesday#India
Don't go by the picture! These kids are the luckiest as they live on the bank of the river in the middle of green vegetable patches and breathe good clean air, or at least the best available in our capital city. For the others the invisible bars of polluted air are...
Learning to…#GivingTuesday#India
Two weeks ago, two class XII students murdered their teacher. The reason: he expelled one of them for poor attendance. Rage, anger, frustration? Nothing can condone violence of this kind and the boys will face the law. The question that begs to be asked, though few...
All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? #GivingTuesday#India
All television is educational television. The question is: what is it teaching? wrote Nicholas Johnson. Television is the most ubiquitous object as it breaks all social barriers and finds its way in every nook and corner of the land. Satellite dishes dot the most...
Requiem for an invisible child #GivingTuesday#India
You may be wondering why the illustration for this post is an ultrasound plate. The reason is that there exists no picture of the child whose story we tell. Little Sonny was born a month or so ago to a beggar woman of the Kalka Temple. This was the mother's 4th child,...
Late by 50 years #GivingTuesday#India
A recent UNESCO report states that India could be late by half a century in achieving its global education commitments. It would need to make fundamental changes in the education policy if it were to meet the 2030 goals. At present India is expected to achieve...
Dirty water stunts million of children #GivingTuesday
India has the largest number of stunted children in the world reveals a recent study. For Project Why that is one too many! The main reasons are: lack of toilets, dirty water and poor hygiene. In urban slums and even lower middle class colonies that is a reality....
It happens only at Project Why #GivingTuesday#India
When a friend offered to run a healing workshop for Project Why staff so that they in turn could share it with the children we were a little hesitant. The reason being the multitude of faiths and beliefs followed by them. However we had faith in the sixteen years of...
Hit and Run #GivingTuesday#India
A young girl was victim of the ubiquitous hit and run syndrome that is a familiar occurrence in cities. Most get reported. Some make front page if a 'celebrity' or 'privileged' is driving a 'swanky' car! There are some hit and run cases that never make any page. Most...