COMMUNITY CENTERS PROJECT

During the 2008-2010 period, the Day Care Centers project in Hadapsar community involved activities specifically designed for children under 14. Thus, the Centers became the safe and protective environment street children need to live childhood experiences that provide the necessary resources and encouragement to become part of society as autonomous and capable individuals.

Given the excellent results of the project, our new goal was to turn the Day Care Centers into Community Centers that would meet the demands of community development as a whole. The increasingly alarming finding that the wellbeing of children can never be complete if work is not also carried out with the rest of the community has led us to expand our range of activities to support parents and the community as well, so that their conditions of extreme poverty and exclusion can be addressed.

Without neglecting direct care to children through tutoring and education campaigns, the new direction of the project will allow us to go from 80 beneficiaries (the children who attended the Day Care Centers) to a total of 2000 people, including the children, teens and adults in Hadapsar  community.

MEN ALSO NEED TO BE LIBERATED

Efforts to tackle gender-based violence against women In India have hitherto concentrated on empowering women to assert themselves. But this one-sided approach insulates men from the process of transformation and does not offer a way out of the patriarchal mould. Men’s violence and aggressiveness are often due to these cultural modes, as images of masculinity are linked to the notion that men with ‘power’ are ‘real men’.

There is a tacit acceptance of gender violence, even from women, in all spheres of Indian society. Two years ago, the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) highlighted the finding that 55% of women did not consider it wrong to be beat by the men in their homes, and 51% of men felt that they had a right to beat the women. 

There have been few sustained efforts at changing attitudes related to masculinity. Dominant forms of masculinity in men must be challenged at a young age. There is a woeful dearth of safe platforms for men to talk about problems that give rise to violent behavior, including those relating to sexuality. Gender-positive male role models are also needed.

A project launched by MAVA (Men against Violence and Abuse) provides safe, non-threatening platforms to young men so they can open up, communicate, share their fears, thoughts, dilemmas and concerns, and come into contact with new ideas about men and masculinity. While collectively addressing gender issues, the project promotes alternative models of masculinity that are gender-equitable.

 ‘Opening up’ in men is much more complex than in women. Men often do not have any experience, confidence, or even vocabulary to describe their innermost feelings. By involving a pool of experienced men who are willing to share personal insights with the young men in MAVA’s project, this process of ‘opening up’ is encouraged. This includes a yearly magazine featuring firsthand experiences of men communicating their anxieties, vulnerabilities and other issues related to masculinity. Nevertheless, it takes guts to renounce patriarchal privileges and step down from a dominant position.

In many schools, gender education has been introduced as a value that needs to be instilled. However, there is lack of effective teacher training on the subject and a lack of child-friendly methods. Moreover, politicians have been stalling efforts to provide integrated sexuality education in schools. 

Men are seen as part of the problem, but unless they are seen as part of the solution, there will be no significant change in the status of women. Men, too, need to be ‘liberated’ from the shackles of patriarchy. It calls for a paradigm shift in viewing the ‘women’s issue’ as a ‘gender issue’ by all concerned.

Source: infochangeindia

FOOD AND NUTRITION PROGRAM

The Food and Nutrition Program is designed to link the government's Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Asha-Kiran Shelters Foundation, as the ICDS does not cover the dwellers of the area where we work. Thus, our project plays an important role in supporting ICDS strategies by reaching beneficiaries more effectively and providing inputs to parents for their children to develop emotionally, physically and socially.

The objectives behind this activity are as follows: creating nutrition awareness among the people, particularly women and adolescent girls; providing information about achieving adequate nutrition within available means; explaining the importance of non-food factors like hygiene, sanitation, safe drinking water etc., and giving information about existing health, nutrition and welfare services for their best utilization.

Approximately 20 mothers attend the monthly meetings of the Food and Nutrition Program. The activities in each session include showing how to prepare low-cost and nutritious recipes with available foodstuffs, discussing the importance of growth, monitoring and child nutrition, using the new WHO Growth Standards, and organizing of mini exhibitions at the district level, nutritional quiz competitions, a nutrition rally, puppet shows, street plays, etc.

The activity revolves around the following topics:

. The functional significance of malnutrition
. Basic facts about food, nutrition, and improving diet at a low cost
. Nutritional needs of different age groups
. Nutrition of pregnant women and nursing mothers
. Promotion of breast feeding
. Infant feeding
. Preparation of instant infant foods ans supplementary foods
. Nutrition of pre-schoolers, school children and adolescents
. Home treatments for diarrohoea
. The importance of immunizations
. Principles of hygiene and sanitation

SEXUAL ABUSE OF CHILDREN

According to the World Health Organisation, child sexual abuse means “involving a child in sexual activity that he or she does not fully comprehend, is unable to give informed consent to, or violates the laws or social taboos of society”.

Sexual abuse of children gained public interest after publication of the report by the Women and Child Development Department entitled ‘Study on Child Abuse India 2007’. The report estimated that “more than 53% of children in India have probably been sexually abused and many have never shared the fact of this abuse with anyone”. Also, recent child sexual abuse cases in India have pointed to the need for stringent legislation and action on this poignant issue.  

The report says, “One of the major problems in understanding the scope of the subject of 'child abuse' is that it is extremely difficult to get responses from children on such a sensitive subject because of their inability to fully understand the different dimensions of child abuse and to talk about their experiences. It is therefore difficult to gather data on abused children.”  Child rights activists, on the other hand, argue that the problem may be the lack of skills on the part of the questioners to create the environment and the trust needed for the child to share his/her experiences.

Sexual offences against children can and are committed in situations such as marriage, trafficking, employment, and many more. It is important to understand the circumstances that allow and may even be a reason for this abuse. In slums, for example, many families make their female children marry young as a protection against sexual abuse. For some parents, marriage this is the only way to ensure that the girl is ‘unavailable’.

Abuse may also be condoned because of financial considerations. Among the Naths of Bihar, prostitution is commonplace. When a family doesn’t have a daughter, girls are purchased from other parts of the state and pushed into sex work so that the family can live off their earnings. Also, children who work as domestic labour, or in hotels and restaurants, are susceptible to sexual abuse at the hands of employers and customers. In addition, children across caste and class lines are vulnerable to abuse from relatives and friends of the family.

Jenny Kitzinger (Defending Innocence: Ideologies of Childhood) says that “...the notion of children’s innate vulnerability... is an ideology of control which diverts attention away from the socially constructed oppression of children...”. She suggests that we replace notions of ‘vulnerability’ with ‘oppression’ and ‘protection’ with ‘empowerment’. She also denounces the practice of telling a child that s/he “can say ‘no’”. In her opinion, this gives the child a sense that s/he can resist a power that, in reality, s/he probably cannot.

Abusers know that children are less likely than adults to speak about the incident/s; that even if they do, few will believe them; that even if they are believed, community members will probably not do much about it, and that even if some action is taken there are loopholes in court processes that can be availed of.

The draft of the Prevention of Sexual Offences Against Children Bill 2011 delineates various kinds of sexual abuse and the prescribed response to each under the law. In the final section of the Bill, there is a detailed section that lists responsibilities of various duty-bearers to the child - police officers, child support services, medical officers and case workers. It also lists the protocol to be followed during court processes and by police and medical practitioners. It should be taken into account, however, that the bill might be difficult to implement in smaller towns and villages, where basic judicial processes are flawed.

Despite this concern as to making the Bill operative, almost all stakeholders accept that current legislation is insufficient to deal with all forms of sexual abuse on children. They also acknowledge that social workers, superintendents of residential homes, wardens, counsellors, teachers and family members all need training and becoming sensitized to the issue, and that a minimum set of actions must be put in place so people are able to help a child who is being sexually exploited. It is only by developing better ways of hearing children and giving them proper support, that effective mechanisms can be created to address their exploitation.

  

Source: infochangeindia

HEARTS OF GOLD

The end of the school year came around and so did the memory of many shared experiences with my 7^th grade students: the cards sent to the children from Yashodhara, Asha-Kiran’s Shelter in India, Uttam and Hansa’s picture (the founders of Asha-Kiran) receiving the envelope containing the cards, the picture of Hansa and Asha-Kiran’s children published in the blog, Yashodhara children writing back on cards made by them with care, the excitement of my students before Uttam’s visit to our high school (which finally could not take place), the big surprise Uttam and his son Uilhas gave them by holding a videoconference, their conversations with me, their questions about my sponsored child Ravi, exams, nervousness. In my heart I felt a pang of pain for not being able to go on teaching my students from IES Celia Viñas.

Three days before the end of the course, my 7^th grade students told me, “Ma’am, tomorrow we’ll have a surprise for you”, and I said: “And I will wear a sari” (I knew how excited they were about seeing me in one).

Their surprise made ​​me cry, I got the best thank-you and end-of-school year gift they could have given me: two envelopes with letters and money for the children of Asha-Kiran. They had agreed to bring their own pocket money and, after counting it, it added up to 46€. Four students came with me to the bank to transfer the money to Fundación Asha-Kiran. They had also made bookmarks ​​on the occasion of Peace Day (with messages in Hindi, Marathi, Moroccan, Spanish, English and French), and a group photo with their signatures for the children of Yashodhara.

In their letters, their love for Asha-Kiran and the children was evident - messages from their sincere, loving, noble, caring hearts; "hearts of gold" for me too (IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO CRY).

I thanked them for their surprise present and for their moving words. I truly felt that in the past nine months they had grasped and learned more than the English I had taught them. I was surprised because when they chose the “perfect gift” for me, they showed a deep knowledge of my heart and feelings, which is not so easy to do nowadays. And, wearing my sari, I told them that since I had been in India, I felt my heart was torn up between Spain and India. They had undoubtedly sensed something of the sort.

The next day, I reciprocated with a small tasting of flavors from India. I brought papadums (Indian pancakes) with mango chutney and raita sauce. I taught them how to make lassi (an Indian drink made with yoghurt), and we tried to learn Bollywood steps. Our last day of school and course farewell party was undoubtedly devoted to INDIA.

The day school marks were handed out, each student received a DVD that I had made with photos of all the above events and the audio version of the videoconference with Uttam and Uilhas.

 

Thanks to my dear Hearts of Gold for remembering the hearts at YASHODHARA.

I also wish to thank my colleagues for their work and enthusiasm for my dear A-K, for their contribution, for brainstorming future possible fundraising activities, for purchasing Indian items at our bazaar, not only for themselves, but as gifts for Xmas and other occasions. Thank you for being available and for your generosity. Many grains of sand can make up a sizeable hill.

A new school year is about to begin. I would love to write a lot of articles like this one - articles featuring actions of solidarity from students and teachers.

I also wish to encourage many teachers who, upon reading this article, may carry out awareness-raising activities in their schools and commit to working for an NGO like Asha-Kiran. As a teacher, I can say that all of the activities undertaken in the past years at different schools (such as HUELÍN HIGH SCHOOL in MÁLAGA, “the pioneering one”, the Solidarity Bazaar at ULYSSEA HIGH SCHOOL in UGIJAR-GRANADA, and the activities of the students at CELIA VIÑAS HIGH SCHOOL in ALMERÍA) have been unforgettable experiences for my students and myself.

All of these activities have been invaluable, such as the one my dear students from 7^th grade (or “Hearts of Gold”, as I call them) played the leading role in, because the donation and the activity was done of their own accord. As a teacher and collaborator at Asha-Kiran, I appreciate all the support the Foundation gave to my initiatives, i.e., the videoconference with Uttam, who managed to set some time aside in his schedule to be with my students, and the readiness of Hansa and the whole team to make it possible for values of solidarity to reach young people.

Thanks to ASHA-KIRAN because its work awakens and invites us to LIVE FROM ESSENCE.

 

Mª Ángeles Arráez - Collaborator at Asha-Kiran 

OPENING OUR YOUNGSTERS' EYES

Uttam Módenes: a practical lesson via videoconference about NGO’s, sustainability and economic systems with 11^th grade students from Celia Viñas High School

The week after a similar videoconference with seventh graders, the teacher of ‘Science for the Contemporary World’ (CMC), Encarnación Segura López, and 11^th grade students had a practical class in which some of them asked questions to the founder of Asha-Kiran concerning India's economy, sustainability, and other issues relevant to the subject of CMC, which had been previously taught. At the end of the videoconference, Uttam encouraged young people to work, to live in justice and solidarity, and to protect the environment. In short, he encouraged every one of us to do his/her bit, from our daily activities, to make our world better.

ADA, one of the students, wrote:

"It was the first time I was in a videoconference and I must say I was surprised by how a high school class can now talk to the founder of an NGO in India to which a teacher in our high school belongs, who was also present.

It seems an admirable endeavor in every way, which I’d love to do at some point in my life. I think of all the people who have been, are being and will be benefited by this man’s will and desire to help them; it is touching and amazing.

Hopefully there will still be other people like this to change the world; we will help them by doing our part."

Mª  Ángeles Arráez - Contributor at Asha-Kiran