VATSALYA

The festival season in India has begun. We celebrated Janam-Ashthmi and Ganesh Chaturthi, the birthdays of Lord Krishna and Lord Ganesh. The children at Udayan especially enjoyed the Dahi Handi, a ritual of stealing sweet yoghurt from an earthen pot hanging at a certain height. They climb over one another in a strategic manner to reach it and break it. The rest of it is a very chaotic but joyful battle to get as much yoghurt as possible from the dripping pot. How children love everything that is noisy, messy and full of chaos!! But it’s a great joy to watch them enjoying these ceremonies and rituals. And it is wonderful to be able to celebrate all these festivals in this big family of ours. The joy multiplies manifold. Now we await Navaratri, the 9-day festival of dance and music. Then it will be Dussera, Diwali and Annakoot. A wonderful, creative and fun time ahead for the children and staff of Udayan!

Remember, we had sent out a request about joining our club “Friends of Vatsalya”? It is a campaign to invite memberships to join the club by committing to annual donation of 100$. The response has been very encouraging and I present here those kind people who have chose to walk with us. We had 16 members in July and the number has gone up to 22! I must share here that there are friends and organizations in the US, UK and Norway, who are working on creating awareness about our campaign and enrolling members….

“Friends of Vatsalya” members as in September, 2009!

  1. Anajna Anant Rai Shastry, India
  2. Anonymous donation in memory of late Mr. G P Gupta, India
  3. Anonymous donation in memory of late Mrs. Dhai Ben S Dixit, India
  4. Apeksha Dixit Sharma, India
  5. Atal Khandelwal, India
  6. Delta Donohue, USA
  7. Hugo Deshrijver, Belgium
  8. Karun Modi, India
  9. Keya Gupta, India
  10. Laura Jane Seligman, USA
  11. Megha Gaurav Bhatnagar, India
  12. Patricia Little, Ireland
  13. Pavitra Mohan, India
  14. Priyanka Rajiv Kamra, India
  15. Ritesh G, India
  16. Sarah Davison Tracy, USA
  17. Shailesh Deshmukh, India
  18. Shirley Rhoads, USA
  19. Srinivasan, Ritambara and Chakrakirti, India
  20. Vanessa Manjeshwar, India
  21. Vignesh Manjeshwar, India
  22. Yvonne Baptista, India

I must say it here that while the financial support they will provide is very important and crucial for us, what we value equally or even more is their spirit, their faith in us and their love for the children!

Volunteers at Vatsalya!

We had Lawrie from UK and Nadia and Peder from Norway. They have added wonderful colors to Udayan, I mean, literally! All three of them spent hours painting jungle scenes on the wall that runs along our small garden in Udayan. So we now have two elephants swaying their trunk, a dancing peacock displaying its amazing colors, monkeys hanging with their tails from the trees, a bear and a gorilla peeping from behind the bushes, a smiling fox, a few squirrels and parrots and rabbits. And yes, butterflies too. It looks so nice, you can imagine…. Volunteers sometimes bring such gifts of talent!

We are now joined also by three dynamic Indian volunteers: Priti, Apoorva and Garima! These young ladies have committed to helping our children, who are living in the transit home in Jaipur, prepare for their 10th or 12th Grade exams. Satyam, Chandani, Aasma and Parveen are getting regular coaching from Priti, Apoorva and Garima. It is a really BIG support for us. These children were feeling anxious and distressed at times, studying on their own. Now they are much more relaxed and happy to have new friends too!

An Indian family that lives in California also volunteered at Udayan last month. The great part of it was that the children were the main volunteers and the parents accompanied them! Aditi and Arjun, in their late teens, were here to represent the LA Chapter of America India Foundation. Aditi holds a responsible position in the organization and oversees the collection of funds and its disposal. These funds are generated by student groups who share their pocket money, organize Garage Sales, exhibitions, etc. After assessing our needs at Udayan, Aditi decided to donate a complete set of books for different classes for ALL the children! It was so timely: for the first time, our children had their books right at the beginning of the new session. Aditi also is very keen on starting a Pen Pal program between children of Vatsalya and her school in the US. Upon returning back home, she sent this note to us:

“…… As to my feedback, my experience was fabulous. You have founded an incredible program and I am so glad I was able to be a part of it. I liked how the children, especially the older ones, followed such a set routine and were always doing something productive. It was amazing how everyone, teachers and students alike, helped one another, taught one another, and corrected one another, selflessly and uninhibitedly. The only area I feel that could be improved upon is the structure of the primary school from the interval onwards. While there was supervision for the younger children before the interval, there was no one to keep them in check afterwards. On one occasion, we walked into the classroom to find one child snipping another one’s hair with a scissor and another child who had climbed high into the metal closet and could not come down. Additionally, aside from one or two books in the primary classroom, the reading material was not age appropriate as the stories and topics were so complex. We went to a few bookstores and asked for books for 3-6 year old children, but we were unable to find any.

Other than that, I had a wonderful time with the kids at Udayan and am really looking forward to the pen pal program. In fact, I was so anxious to communicate with them that I learned to read and write Hindi during the car ride back to Dehli. I am now writing a paragraph a day in Hindi for practice and am reading 3rd grade books. As many AIFJC members are still on vacation, we will only be having our next meeting in mid September. However, I will be sure to bring up the pen pal project at that time. In the meanwhile, I am composing a first letter to all the children, re-introducing the pen pal idea and asking those interested to send a list of their names and a little bit about themselves (a special interest they have, a short one-paragraph biography, or a picture they have drawn). Please do inform them that a letter, along with photographs capturing some of our memories together is on its way….”.

Thank you, Aditi! We enjoyed reading this note, in spite of the unruly scene you describe…! I read it aloud in our evening Assembly after Meditation, and in the midst of suppressed laughter from the littlest ones, Divyansh admitted trying to trim Aakash’s hair one day. He also shared, with his usual naughty smile, that there were others in the queue after Aakash. Children also promptly informed us that it was Rehaan in the metal closet. When I asked them about the risk of hurting oneself with the scissors, they replied- “Oh, don’t worry, we can’t even cut paper with them”! Children can be so funny….! But thanks a lot for sharing these ‘inner stories” with us, for otherwise we would never come to know these things.

Please understand that I do not mean to undermine Aditi’s concern about the safety of children and a need to keep them under responsible supervision. We need more teachers and for more teachers we need more salaries. We hoped that some of our older children, who graduated last month, would opt for a teaching vocation, but they have other interests. We tried to train them and they tried to learn to be teachers, but it did not work out. It is a matter of concern to us and a sad state of affairs. The education system and the teaching vocation in India are not really inspiring at present. Becoming a teacher is not a preferred choice for most, apart from the reason that it would get you a monthly income. We are working hard to improve and revamp our systems at Udayan so that the mindset changes a little bit for our children, at least for those who can choose to be a teacher. We hope to find solutions to our staff problem soon. And we have given strict orders now to keep the closets locked: no more climbing up on them and no taking scissors out of them…!

Other major happenings at Vatsalya…

  • Aaditya- Our new child at Udayan

Karan and Dayal, our Cooks at Udayan had shared with us the story of a 9 year old boy who became an orphan at the age of 5 and had been living with his uncle ever since. They told us about the abusive treatment the child was receiving and it was decided that they would try to bring him to Udayan. He is with us now. At the moment, he looks confused and the trauma of his past life is quite evident in his eyes. Karan and Dayal are helping him settle down at Udayan, since only they speak his language. We have named him Aaditya, which means Sun…

  • Visit of the Salaam Garage Team in September

Amanda Koaster of Salaam Garage is brining yet another team of photojournalists, human rights activists and social workers to Vatsalya this month. They will spend four days visiting Udayan, Samvedna, Upaarjan, Kalyaani (our new project with Commercial Sex Workers) and Kawach, our HIV-AIDS interventions with Truckers. The information and coverage they do of these interventions is then shared with communities around the world, in the US especially. It is a significant and very impactful approach helping Vatsalya reach out to global community…

  • Anoothi Amer

An outlet of products made by women of Vatsalya’s Self Help Groups is being opened this month. The semi precious and silver jewelry and the home products will now be available for sale in Jaipur. Megha, our Udayan architect, is very graciously donating her time and skill in setting up the little ‘Shoppe’ and Amanda will be doing us the honor of cutting the ribbon…

  • Upaarjan-

The initial interventions in AIF-supported vocational training program for the youth of the slums and the poor rural families are in full swing. We have completed the survey of slum localities of Jaipur to estimate the number of potential candidates for training. The EPA (Employability Potential Assessment) is complete as well. The EPA is aimed at finding out what kind of employment opportunities exist for these youths. Vatsalya will then develop its courses accordingly to bridge the gap between their abilities and their suitability for different jobs. It is a very useful and challenging program and we are very committed to ensuring that 100% of the youth we train get suitably employed…

  • The health of children of Vatsalya….

Ram Kumar, one of our graduates who was placed as a trainee in Surat wasn’t feeling too well there and so we called him back. Upon investigation, it was found that he was suffering from Typhoid. He has been in the SDMH hospital for about a fortnight now. This hospital provides free consultation, clinical tests and indoor facility to Vatsalya. Ram Kumar is recovering fast under the able and quality care of the doctor there. Other than that, the children have been well at Udayan….

  • RKCL results

Rajasthan Knowledge Corporation Limited offers a 3-month certificate course in Computer Applications to students. Four of our children attended the course. These are the scores:

  • Giriraj-80
  • Mukesh-72
  • Shahina-66
  • Anmol-74

I will stop here, hoping you have enjoyed reading this note…

Warm regards

Jaimala

The old editions of “With Love, from Vatsalya” can be accessed at