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One of the proudest moment for all of us was when Trustees of Bal Vinita Ashram, the oldest and biggest children's shelter in Dehradun came and visited our Women's & Children's shelter. It was possible the biggest honor for us, when they sought our help in keeping a 22 year old girl in our shelter, since they couldn't keep her, because of age restrictions in their charter.
They were happy to see our work and wondered if we could keep more girls from their shelter who cross the age of 18 years, which, needless to say, we readily agreed to.
So, now we have a new member in Saheli Family, Shruti Arya, who has been an orphan since the age of 2 years, she is now doing her college and a part time
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This month we held a meeting of women in the slums of Patel Nagar, on the outskirts of Dehradun. As is usually the case, marital violence is common here and some women actually justified it. This was our first meeting in the area and hopefully, as we have done before in other shanty towns, gradually bring about a change in this area too.
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It was a pleasure meeting Radhika after a long time. 27 year old Radhika came to us 2 years ago, badly shaken because of 7 years of marital physical abuse, totally broken with no self esteem. After initial conselling, much cajoling and lots of emotional support, Radhika got down to getting an initial training in a nearby factory, where she later got employed. Today she is living on her own, in a rented room. It has been over 7 months now and she has matured into a very confident young lady. Though we continue to support her son, Aryan's, education and look after him after school hours while his mother is at work, we are quite sure in a short time, Radhika will be truly self dependent.
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EDUCATION AT YOUR DOORSTEP
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Education at your doorstep, as the name suggests aims at educating rural girls at their own homes. In India, mostly in rural areas half of the adolescent girls are denied of education and are forced to halt their further studies mainly because their parents don't want them to go to a regular school and even if some of the parents want to send them the schools are very far from the villages. So, there is very less scope for the girls to go out and continue their studies further. Saheli is actively considering stepping in and teaching such girls in their own villages.
We be forming "Girls Power Club" in 10 different villages, with hopefully 10 girls in each club. Apart from teaching them English and Computers we will also educate them about their about their legal rights. Each club will last for 3 months, so that we cover different villages in the next 3 years.
We have sponsors who will fund the project provided we have our own hardware. It would be very difficult for us to teach them Computers without laptops. We need 5 laptops, 1 for 2 girls which costs a lot and it would be very difficult to take PC door to door and village to village. We need to buy 5 laptops and 5 Microsoft Office. We are sure with your help we would be able to start with this project soon. We have started a crowd funding drive. We need to raise 3.25 lakhs and till now we have generated Rs. 20,100/- only. Please do help out. Unfortunately this crowdfunding site only accepts Indian donations, so if you wish to help out and you live abroad, please reply to this mail and we'll contact you.
To donate, please click the link below:
https://www.bitgiving.com/project/index/id/BIT342
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Diwali, the Festival of Lights, was celebrated with love and happiness at the Saheli Women's & Children's Shelter. One of the most important Hindu festivals, Diwali is celebrated by sharing sweets, praying, making artwork called Rangoli, on the floor (as you can see in the picture) and lightening crackers. This is one day all the children in India look forwards to.
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Message from the Secretary
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Greetings from Saheli,
Let me begin this with a personal note. With your blessings, good wishes and help, I've been shortlisted for a National "100 Women who made a difference" in India, Award. This award is by the Central government's Ministry of Women & Child Development. We are now in a stage of online voting. Anyone can vote, from around the world. So, may I take the liberty of requesting everyone to please click the following link, go to the Women's Empowerment section, which is at the very last and then click on my name.
https://100womenindia.votenow.tv/
Please do vote, if we win, Saheli becomes a Nationally well know organization, which is why I need your help.
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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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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EDUCATION AT YOUR DOORSTEP
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In an effort to raise funds for the Saheli Women's & Children's Shelter, Saheli Trust in association with Jingles India, a Dehradun based advertising company and UK07 Films, another Dehradun based film production company, organized a "Ride For Peace" along with Motorcycle Clubs in the region. The ride, in which pillion seats were for "sale" for INR 1000 each, started early morning from Dehradun and after visiting the Saheli Shelter, they went all the way to Mussorie, a hill station in the Himalayas, an hour drive away. Participants were treated to sumptuous food and a talk about Saheli in an adventure camp in the mountains. In the evening the event ended with a cultural show in Dehradun where the Saheli Movie was also shown and an interactive session on Saheli was held with the audience.
The event besides generating some funds for the shelter proved to be a good PR exercise as our Women's Helpline Number got widely disseminated among the participants and the audience and hopefully more women and children will now be able to access our help, should such a need arise.
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Of the three new cases which came to us this month, Laxmi's case was particularly disturbing. This 28 year old Nepali woman has two boys, 9 & 2 years old and she works as a domestic help in Rajpur area of Dehradun. She has a drunk husband who has not only married another lady but also insists on spending some days with her as and when he wishes and gets physically very aggressive. The ruckus he creates results in the lady's employers chucking her out and she invariably has to hunt for another house to stay and work in every few months.
Because of the frequent violence at home, her elder son shows symptoms of stress and is not good in studies. The present home where Laxmi is staying is of a retired very old Army Colonel and his wife, who live all by themselves. Not only does Laxmi's husband harass them but even the local police, who instead of acting on Laxmi's complaints of wife beating, harass her employers to chuck her out.
Laxmi's employers got in touch with us through the internet and our intervention made the difference. We warned the husband to stay away from the house where Laxmi stays and also visited the local police station to make them understand the situation. Since our two visits , the harassment has ceased.
Laxmi wants a divorce so that she can live and work peacefully and raise her two sons. Since the husband has anyways remarried, that should not be a problem. We will keep you updated on Laxmi's plight, as things unfold.
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Message from the Secretary
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Greetings from Saheli,
Continuing our campaign to enlighten as many women and children as possible on the rights guaranteed to them under the Indian Constitution, this month we visited an industrial area of Dehradun called Mohobewalla. The area is inhabited by mostly people working in the various factories in the region and is one of the most under developed parts of our city.
We tied up with a private nursery school in the area and got the parents of the students to attend. Despite being relatively well off, compared to the usual slums we visit, the level of ignorance regarding rights of women and issues connected with Domestic Violence were amazingly high. Ofcourse, many women who are very well educated, are equally unawares of their rights too.
We were lucky to have with us Melanie, a volunteer from UK, who stayed with the children in the Saheli Women's Shelter and taught them English. She is the fourth such volunteer to stay with the children and gradually, albeit slowly but definitely, the level of English in our children is increasing. Melanie stayed with us for a month and hopefully picked up a few Indian things herself.
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
|
|
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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