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Published: March 4th 2012
The "chosen" children.
Anita, Priyanka, Gudiya, Ronnie, Neha, Pooja, Kajal, Manesha, Abashak, Ajeet, Golu, Ankit, Roshan, Koshak, Raoul. Get comfortable, this is a long one!
The four of us strangers from the other side of the globe were brought together only two and a half weeks ago and with our varied educational backgrounds, personal values, and life experiences we have made up a very unique, yet effective team. John is the motivator! He makes things happen and at the end of a long, fulfilling day he is always ready for "one more interview". I am the critical one or as Natalie calls me "the analytical thinker". I look at each situation from every angle and evaluate the positive/negative impact of every decision made. I can admit, that at times, my over-analysis is a bit overwhelming and counter productive. Natalie keeps us all on the positive track, reminding us of our purpose here in India and that even our smallest gestures can have a huge impact. Heather helps maintain a healthy balance between the members of the group and keeps us focused on the tasks at hand. Heather is a great listener and often becomes our sounding board when we are feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. So there it is, your official introduction to our well rounded team of volunteers
in Faridabad, India.
Last week I had informed you all of the Squalor to Scholar Program where key community members of Faridabad (Mitlesh), the four of us volunteers, our house parents (Shri and Mamta),and the Sisters at the Carmel Convent School have come together to make it possible for fifteen slum children to attend private school for the next ten years. We gathered the families of the "chosen" ones and informed them of our
plans to support and sponsor their children over the next ten years of their education. This opportunity requires a lot of thought and commitment on the part of each family to ensure their is sufficient support to ensure the success of these children. Many families travel around for work and don't stay in one community for more than a few months or a few years at a time. We have basically asked these families to invest in their children's future educations, with our help, and commit to staying in Faridabad for the next decade. Also, some of the children are the primary caregivers for their younger siblings so it will take some reorganization of the roles in some of the families in order to accomodate
the absence and education of a key caregiver. Our announcement must have come as a huge shock but by the end of the meeting the enthusiasm and excitement was beaming on the faces of the children and their parents.
The word has spread and in one weeks time we have had a great response from our friends and families back home. My sister, Alexis, donated $250.00 and has committed to sponsoring a child not just for this year but for a total of ten years. I suggested a six year old boy named Ankit for Alexis because he is the greatest! Ankit is one if the smartest kids and is an obvious leader. His outgoing personality and his great big smile is hilarious and reminds me of Alexis when she was an over achieving and enthusiastic elementary school student. Ankit stands with perfect confidence when in front of the class and yells out the ABC's (or counting 1-100, body parts, colors, fruits/vegetables, nursery rhymes in English, etc.) loud and clear with military style. Ankit's father and mother are very supportive and seem to fully understand/appreciate this opportunity. Ankit has a younger brother as well.
My mom, Bert, also
donated $250.00 to fund a child's education this year and then plans to follow through for the remaining nine. I suggested a girl named Anita as my time spent in India was meant to focus on women's empowerment and I figured, what is more empowering than an education? An education for a girl living in the slums will give her new opportunities and hopefully help her escape a life of illiteracy, arranged marriage, and early child bearing/rearing. So that is why I thought Mom should sponsor one of our girls but why did I pick Anita? Well, Anita and her three sisters are being raised by their mother as their father has passed away. Anita's mom works every day for 150 rupees ($3.00 a day) and would never be able to save enough to provide an education for her daughters. I feel like I can relate to Anita because I know what it is like to lose a father and my mom can relate to Anita's mother because she knows what it is like to lose a husband. This young girl will be a perfect fit, shy yet motivated and committed to learning. Hopefully Anita will come home from school
and share what she has learned with her sisters and together they will be able to provide for their mother one day. I have heard via the grape vine that their may be others working on raising money for the Squalor to Scholar Program. Thanks for the support! Their are many more great kids that could use your help!
Your financial support is already having an impact. Over the course of the last week we took all of the students and some of their family members (Mother, Father, or older sibling) to get measured for school uniforms and fitted for shoes. Picture tuk tuks filled with anywhere from 14-17 adults and children on the road to Sector 10 to go shopping. The parents were so proud and the children showed off their best strut/model walks in their new black shoes. Everyone was so excited! The books have been ordered and Natalie, Heather, and I shopped for the back packs (the Spider Man packs were a hit- weird!). All the necessary school supplies have been handed out and the first day of school is scheduled for Monday- how exciting! The three of us girls have spent a great deal of
our time tutoring the children and trying to improve their English to get them ready for the Carmel Convent School.
Although we have been investing a lot of time and energy into the children, we have also been trying to focus some of our attention on the young girls/women that meet daily at the slum school. These women
come together to socialize and to prepare hand made goods for themselves and others in the community ie: knitting and crocheting hats/sweaters/curtains, hand stitching and embroidery on handkerchiefs, and sewing bags using an old fashioned, hand motored sewing machine. When we first arrived in Faridabad it was suggested that some of the young, uneducated women may benefit from vocational school to learn stitching/tailoring or beauty parlor skills. Consequently, our next door neighbor, Meenakshi, owns and operates a vocational school that focuses on these fields. After connecting with Meenakshi and discussing program availability and fees, we decided to get an idea of how many uneducated girls may be interested in exploring these programs as an opportunity to gain a skill to be more self reliant in hopes to relieve some of the urgency to get married at such a young age. Word
Waiting to be pierced.
Pritima, Pushpa, Gudiya, Natalie, and Naisa offer support to Heather before she gets her nose pierced. spread fast about our questioning the girls' interest in the stitching/tailoring and beauty salon schooling and, because the community was already well aware of our sponsoring of 15 slum children's education, our intentions were misinterpreted. Thirty women showed up to the slum school to express an overwhelming interest in participating in either of the above mentioned programs. It was obvious that many of the women had not given much thought to the six month-one year commitment required of the courses as they changed their minds from one program to the other and then back again. Also, we could sense that the ladies were under the impression that a "free" education was being offered and of course they were accepting of it, I mean, who wouldn't be? We started to feel that we had gotten in way over our heads and that our focus had somewhere been lost in translation. We could not afford nor were we willing to sponsor 30 + women to go to vocational school as a "hobby". We had never met most of these women before and unfortunately couldn't offer the financial
support they were hoping for.
We felt deflated for a few days and needed some down time to process. With bruised egos we decided it was best to slow down and go back to basics. We sat down with our translator, Mitlesh, and the girls to
find out what their interests were and to ask what we could do to help them. Prya, Pushpa, Neetu and Soni asked to learn English-doable! Another woman asked for commerce/ business skills so that the women can
make an income from selling their goods at the market-doable (for Heather and Natalie anyways as I will doing some travelling in the next few weeks and will not have the time). We also thought that maybe someone could be asked to come to the school to do a workshop on stitching, tailoring, embroidery, etc. The girls would not get a certificate for the classes but could stil learn the skills. We also learned that the women have five broken sewing machines that would cost approximately 1000 rupees ($20.00) to repair so the three of us are considering donating the money to fix the machines so that the women can sew more bags.
This situation reaffirmed how important it is to talk to people and gather first hand information. Asking questions is very important. We needed to see what the women felt they needed or wanted from us without blindly trusting that outside perspectives are correct. We all know how easy it is to let our own beliefs/values influence how we try to make sense of other cultures. I didn't even get a chance to get to know these women before attempting to "empower" them. Valuable time was wasted heading in the wrong direction and I am disappointed that I could not have spent more quality time getting to know these women one on one as I can see how great each of them are. Back to social work basics- building rapport. Can you think of a better way to build rapport than to gather a group of women to walk to the market to get our noses pierced? How great right? Just kidding, only Heather did. Ha ha thanks Heather for Theron
afternoon.
Last Sunday we went to the church service at the Carmel Convent School chapel as we were invited by the Sisters. The service switches each week between Hindi and English service and we happened to be joining on the Hindi service. Luckily, Sister Pushpa had given the priest a heads up so he changed some of the sermon to English so that we were able to follow along. All the songs remained in Hindi except one.... And I would not have been able to pick a better English song if I got to pick it myself. The song that spoke to me in 2006 when volunteering in Peru was now speaking to me six years later during my volunteer experience in India. The song "Here I am Lord" was all I needed to confirm that I was once again in the right place at just the right time. The lyrics go like this,
"I the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin, My hand will save. I who made the stars of
night, I will make their darkness bright. Who will bear My light to
them? Who shall I send?"
And the chorus goes,
"Here I am Lord, is it I Lord? I have heard you
calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me. I will hold Your
people in my heart."
And so I feel confident that God has a plan for me and that I am in India for a purpose. Thanks for listening.
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jaye weisbrod
non-member comment
just to say hi
Hi. It is so great to hear from you. We are all so proud of what you are doing. You are showing just how strong of a young woman you are. I wait to read more. Love always uncle Larry aunt Jaye and the girls.