A Winter in India

Carolyn and Milan are now in Agra. The last day they were here (Sunday) we went to a shopping mall in South Delhi to see the work of the Faith Foundation. I knew that Kaushik Moitra, the law student who Fulbright arranged to help us get oriented when we first came to Delhi, worked with this group and he had told us some about it. We now had the opportunity to see their work first hand.

Basically, they work with street children two days a week. Saturday they do a school lesson (English, math, writing, "public" speaking) and Sunday morning they do a craft project. Partly they meet on weekends because that's when the volunteers can be there, but its also because the kids are working all the rest of the week, typically 5 AM to 8 PM, as rag pickers. They aren't orphans; their families have moved here from Bangladesh (some as legal immigrants and some not) so most speak Bengali, not English or Hindi. None of them attend school.

There were about 30 kids there, who live in shacks across the road from this very oppulent shopping mall. The group met behind the mall in an unused fountain, a circular structure that had about 3 levels of cement platform that could be used as seats. Today they were drawing pictures, copying from postcards they were given. I think the kids ranged from about 4 to 14 years old. Six or so out of 30 were girls. It has taken two years for the families to trust the group enough to let their boys come, and they are just starting to let a few of their girls come. The kids were clearly having a good time. They showed a variety of attention to their project. Some were more interested in the other kids, but some were making incredibly detailed drawings and then coloring with every color of crayon they could get. (I imagine that attention to detail is an important visual skill for a rag picker.) While they were drawing, the volunteers were interacting with them, joking and doing friendly critique and encouragement of their drawings. Also during this time, the one volunteer who is a doctor (he is a urologist and a transplant surgeon) was helping them clip their fingernails, which also gave him a chance to do an exam without it seeming like an exam. The volunteers know all the kids by name at this point and know their various talents and can tell from week to week if their health has changed.

After about an hour of drawing, they are served lunch. (They have to have finished their task and signed their name before they can have lunch. Just scribbling won't cut it.) First a glass of chocolate milk, then a vitamin and an iron pill, and then a lunch of a sandwich, hardboiled egg and banana. One child needed additional medicine for a respiratory infection. Twice a year they de-worm the kids. If someone needs more care, one of the volunteers will take the child to the clinic or hospital. I gather that as time has gone on, there has been less need of that.

So the first 3 photos are the kids, and the bottom photo is the volunteers. From left to right are two girls who help every week, then a guy who works in IT and has built their website (which is very good and you can check it out to learn more at www.faithindia.org). He and our friend Kaushik got involved in this because they were meeting at the coffee shop next to this fountain to work on the newspaper they were publishing and noticed the activities and now are there every weekend (I think the newspaper has since ended). Next (in the middle) is Kaushik, then Bishalahki Ghosh, who started the group, and Rajiv Sood, the physician. Bishalahki is from Calcutta and speaks Bengali, so when she came to the mall on the weekends, she started talking with these kids. She says she wanted to do something, and a friend suggested she start with sandwiches, which she did. The rest has grown in 2 and a half years. Still no office or overhead; they have committed to growing only as fast as they can sustain, because they see that continuity is more important than size. They are now an NGO, due to a person from Holland who was living in Delhi and knew how to get that done. Kaushik also helps with legal questions (talk about "service learning"). The doctor is retired from the Indian army and is now in private practice.

We really enjoyed meeting all of them and seeing their work was one of those inspirational moments that give you hope for the world.

Here are Carolyn's comments on the visit: The trip to see the street ministry yesterday was very interesting. Pam and Dave's friend Kaushik and a few other people meet with these kids around a nonworking fountain in a very posh western style shopping area which is just across the street from a squatters village, The people are mostly from Bangladesh, some are illegal immagrants. Can you imagine that it is preferable for some people to be here on the street? For some it is because they are not Moslem when Bangladesh is predominantly so. Anyway the woman who started this is from Kolcutta, where they also speak Bengali. She started by just bringing the kids bread and butter and talking with them. They are now having an "informal school" for a couple of hours on Saturdays after which they get a bag lunch, milk and vitamins. Then on Sunday they do a craft or activity sort of thing. Yesterday they each got a pencil and a piece of paper and a photogragh that they worked on copying freehand. As they worked the volunteers went around with a bag of crayons. 30 kids from about 4-14 were so thrilled to have a piece of paper and pencil that there was a near silence as everyone got into drawing. There is a doctor who drops in and just interacts with them. Yesterday he was showing them how to clip their nails then passing the clippers around. That lets him sort of keep an eye on them. They also get the bag lunch and milk and vitamin at the end on Sunday.