JUST LIKE HOME

In the past few months, our staff in charge of the Day Care facility at Asha-Kiran's Community Center have noticed a drastic improvement in the children. They are more involved in the activities conducted by the teacher, they cry less, heve fun, explore, and there are more happy faces overall.

We are pleased to see that the children see our Day Care Center as a welcoming and fun place, and that their mothers trust Asha-Kiran to care for their sons and daughters while they go to work.

CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Upon listening to sayings like "I wish you to father a thousand sons" or "Raising a daughter is like watering the neighbor's garden" and knowing the statistics on infanticide, feticide, honor crimes, sexual exploitation, chastity and forced sexual darkness, the question that arises is: why are laws that have already been passed in favor of women not implemented in India?

The main reason could be that there is a conflict between Domestic and Customary law. The latter consists of traditions and customs  not included in any governmental regulation. In addition, a high percentage of women have no access to the judicial system due to illiteracy and lack of knowledge or money.

Despite the generalized view that Indian women are weak, they are able to introspect on their subordinate status. That is why organizations like Naya Nagar offer Indian women Mahila Mandal, voluntary associations of women who want to be heard before the government while working together to improve their community. This way, women have a chance to go against stereotypes and convey their concerns and desire for change to politicians.

A Mahila Mandal fights human rights violations, sexism, religious sexism and homophobia. It exerts pressure on the government from  a human rights perspective by mobilizing communities and using democratic, non-bellicose procedures.

These women are present in the sphere of power of their community by organizing themselves, assuming leadership and mediating between groups. Just the same, there is still a long way to go. It is necessary for every world citizen to adopt an open and responsible attitude so that everyone in this  world is responsible for human development.

Source. huffingtonpost.com

RANGOLI AT YASHODHARA

Asha-Kiran held an Arts competition for the children who live at Yashodhara Home. Aside from making pictures with water colors and sketching with pencils, the children made rangoli designs.

Rangoli are designs made with ingredients such as colored rice, flour, flower petals, turmeric, vermillion and colored sand. The patterns include the face of Hindu deities, geometric shapes, and round floral designs. Many of these motifs are traditional and are handed down by previous generations.

A prize distribution program was held soon after the competition. Each of A-K’s staff members were invited to distribute the prizes to the winners.

MOVING A MOUNTAIN

Back in the 60's, the small town of Gehlaur in northern India was almost isolated. A 90-meter-tall mound made the access to schools, hospitals and jobs very difficult. A man from the area, Dashrath Manjhi, had to climb it every day to get to the farm where he worked. There was a dangerous road where accidents often happened. One day, his wife was injured on her way to bring Manjhi his lunch. It was then that he decided to sell his goats and buy some tools to build a better road.

Without giving up his job in the fields, Manjhi devoted his free time and many hours of sleep to burrow a hole in the mountain. Some time later, his wife became seriously ill and was unable to travel to the nearest city (75 km away), where the doctor was. The loss of his wife strengthened Manjhi’s resolve. Residents of the village began to give him food, and after leaving his job, this true regional hero finished building 100-meter-long and 10-meter-wide road after working on his own for 22 years, and using just hammers, crowbars and chisels.

Completed in 1982, the road still serves the purpose of turning the formerly difficult journey to schools and hospitals into a 5 km walk. If the determination and commitment of a single person can move a mountain, what could many hands and hearts accomplish together?

Source: rt.com

HEALTH AND FUN

Godrej Horizons Builders organized several field trips for the children who attend Asha-Kiran's Day Care Centers at their construction sites. The children went to Agha Khan Palace in

 Pune, where they had a fun-filled day. 

The activities they enjoyed the most were an origami session where they created different shapes using colored kite paper, and a dance class taught by a professional teacher who taug

ht them dance steps seen in popular Indian movies. The organizers also provided a midday 

meal and snacks. 

Aside from the fun, the children from these construction sites also attented a Health Camp where they got chekups and the medication they needed.

ASHA-KIRAN IN SEGOVIA

On Thursday June 11, Asha-Kiran was present at the school Colegio Cooparativa Alcázar de Segovia. Throughout the morning, the students of 10th grade learned about its projects and the experience of being a Volunteer in India. Marta Escudero, a teacher at the school and a Volunteer with A-K, showed them a video about her stay in Pune last summer as she recounted her experiences with the children and other vulnerable groups she shared time and smiles with.

This activity intended to bring the students closer to a largely unknown social reality to them by putting put images and sounds to a different culture, trying to bring about some reflection and arousing interest in volunteering and the work of Asha-Kiran.

GIRLS AND PROSTITUTION IN INDIA

Sister Caridad Paramundayil embodies many years of hard work to help girl victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. This Indian woman arrived in Madrid as a novice of the Adorer Sisters Order at the age of 17, where she encountered “a different world” without having an inkling of what she was going to devote her life to. ‘One of the nuns explained it to us, but I didn’t understand’, she recalls. Now, in 2015, she emphatically says that she would not change her life for anything.

Sister Caridad recently returned to Madrid to provide support for the organization Manos Unidas, and to lecture on the subject she knows most about: providing decent livelihoods to the daughters of the prostitutes who live in some of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in India. Often, these girls are abducted by mafias that sexually exploit them. Even as young as 12, the girls often live in extreme poverty, overcrowded in slums, with no hygienic measures whatsoever, and hand over almost all the money they make to the “madames” who manage their business.

Fear and disgust. Those were the feelings that shook the missionary’s body the first time she went to a slum in Calcutta. Bachpan Bachao Andolan, an Indian organization that fights child labor, estimates that more than a million prostitutes in India are minors and that their numbers are ever increasing. Even if prostitutes want to have a different job, they often cannot manage to get one, mainly because they know nothing else to do for a living.

Because of the difficulties that rehabilitating adult women entail, Sister Caridad’s project pays more attention to the daughters of prostitutes. According to the nuns, their work includes preventing girls from following in their mothers’ footsteps, which is very common because they lack any kind of education or training. Schools do not usually accept them because parents do not want their children to come in contact with them. Sponsored by Manos Unidas, Sister Caridad contributed to the creation of Shelter Homes in various states in India.

Since the project started, almost 400 girls and teens have learned to read, write, run a business, sew, etc. The hardest part, she says, was dealing with gangs and pimps who even had brought them to trial -paradoxically accusing them of promoting prostitution- from fear of seeing a drop in their income. At first, it was difficult for prostitute mothers to trust the nuns, but they began to do so once they saw they were there to stay.

Now, the most difficult challenge is for the young girls to stay until they finish their training. One of the most difficult moments for the missionaries is to accept the fact that some of these girls will leave, sometimes without saying goodbye. Even if this happens, Sister Caridad says: ‘I prefer to believe that no one is bad. Something will stick from everything we've given them, and someday they will realize it. That is my hope’.

Source: elpais.com