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Our girls participated in three plantation drives and planted around 50 fruit and flowering trees. Bhagirath, one of the 4 Uttarakhand Disaster orphan siblings, is an excellent and very enthusiastic tree planter. We would be going back to see how our planted saplings do. Sensitizing children at an early age to environmental issues will make Earth a safer place.
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This month we were fortunate enough to visit an NGO called Teach Girls, which as the name suggests works in the field of female education. This was our first visit to their center and we had a very active session on Domestic Violence. Next month we plan to revisit the center and talk to the girls there about Good & Bad Touch.
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We also visited the New Khala Goan once again, this time in the evening to meet all the working women who live there. In our previous visit last month we were not able to meet the working women as we went there in the morning. We had a nice meeting with over 35 women, which is almost the entire population of the village. Our topic of discussion this time was the necessasity or otherwise of a male child in the family, and as you can guess, it was really an eye opener on the way people still think. Hopefully, gradually we will change that thinking.
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A very tragic story which came to light this month was that of Anjana and her daughter, Rudrika. This 12 year, grossly malnourished girl, was being mistreated by her step father for last 2 years. Food was limited, absolutely no entertainment, she used to be locked up in a room whenever the rest of the family went on an outing. The mother was too scared of the husband, who was also a wife beater. With our intervention, we were able to convince her mother's sister to take the girl with her and take care of her. If that also does not work, we will keep the girl with us, but since the Aunt seemed to genuinely love the girl, we thought it would be better to let her keep the girl initially. We will be following this girl very closely and monitor her progress.
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Message from the Secretary
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Greetings from Saheli,
Greetings from all the three of us. On the right side of the picture, is Kiran, the Warden of our Shelter and on the left is Suman, the caretaker of the Little Angel's Creche.
The heart breaking story of Anjana and her daughter brought tears in my eyes. How can, in this modern day, a 12 year old girl be denied adequate food, right in the Capital city of Uttarakhand. If this can happen here, one shudders to think what could happen in remote areas The mother found us through Google, but what about so many others, who would not be internet savvy.
Another equally traumatic story we heard this month was of a lady in Mumbai, whose mother lives in Dehradun. Apparently this lady too is a victim of severe physical abuse and is not even allowed to talk to her mother in private on phone. As is typical, both the victim and her parents have kept quiet all these years to save the "families" name. We are encouraging the mother to visit Mumbai and bring back by force her daughter and her granddaughter. We would try and arrange a volunteer to accompany her, who could handle the husband. But first the mother needs mental strength to physically go to her daughters house. Lets see how things progress. Will keep you updated as and when things move.
A request i would like to make to everyone is to please forward this email to your friends and relatives, so that they could be aware of our work. More the people involved, more encouragement and ideas will we get and things would only get better. So, please do forward our newsletters to those in your address book.
Also I would like to appeal to everyone is to help us out with donations. You can "adopt" a child for Rs 3000/- per month, for as long as you like. You can stop the donations as and when you wish, no questions asked. This amount of Rs 3000/- includes Rs 800/- for studies, Rs 2000/- for food and Rs 200/- towards personal expenses. Details of ways to donate are here:
http://www.sahelitrust.com/donate.asp
Please remember, each rupee counts and please don't think that there are many "others" who will help us. Do help us yourself too. We now have 80G, so you get tax benefit too.
And finally, a big request to everyone is to please help us grow by giving us advice on the way forwards, by pointing out our mistakes and by suggesting new ideas to us. Please do not hesitate in criticizing anything you don't like. All you need to do is to reply to this newsletter. And if you live in Dehradun, or if you ever visit our city, my earnest appeal to you is to visit us. Do call me and I shall be honored to arrange a visit for you. My number is +91-9760371958.
With regards,
Shruti Kaushik,
Secretary, Saheli
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If you missed the back issues of our newsletter, please follow this link to see our past issues:
http://www.sahelitrust.com/newsletters.asp
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If you missed the back issues of our newsletter, please follow this link to see our past issues:
http://www.sahelitrust.com/newsletters.asp
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