Projects

I wanted to write about some of the amazing experiences I had while volunteering at an NGO in Ahmedabad, India this summer called Manav Sadhna ("Service to Mankind"). My time there gave me the purest gratification and love that I have ever experienced. They implement focused, need-based projects which often spring up as a result of one another. I helped and observed many of these projects.

The projects included:

 

-The card project, and teaching these children basic English (explained in "Love all, Serve all" 2008 post)

-Getting Rohan various disability certificates (explained in "Love all, Serve all" 2008 post)

-malaria prevention and dustbin distribution in the slum area right across from the NGO called the Tekra (the largest slum in Gujarat) as well as a couple other slum areas in the vicinity

Jayeshbhai with Aarti and Pooja, two adorable girls that live in the slum in front of the Tekra

Someone's home

Inside it

Inside another home (with a boy peeking out at me from under the tarp wall)

-the Saturday Special project that focuses on bringing childhood back to slum children by entertaining them from 4-6pm every Saturday at the NGO with singing and dancing and telling stories as well as doing bhangra and garba with 150 kids to a dhol beat (I also helped make ras for the children for one of these events, which involved sitting with 3 behns and a gigantic pot (which I would have sworn was bottomless) full to the brim of mangos for about 3 hours peeling and squeezing mangos)

First Saturday Special of the year!:

150 or so Manav Sadhna children

Focusing activity

Bhangra

Staff members had fun, too.

-visitng Anganwadis (pre-primary schools for children 1-5 years old which also take care of community problems and health issues for pregnant mothers and their babies, located in the middle of slum areas, there are 66 total in Ahmedabad) where I went to play with the children

Chetna Behn's Anganwadi classroom

water time after snacks

-computer, tution, saving money, and family planning classes offered in the community center on the Tekra (built by Manav Sadhna) and at Manav Sadhna itself

The Mahatma Gandhi Computer Center in Manav Sadhna

-making rounds in the Tekra slum to do medical followup visits with staff members

-accompanying staff members to enroll children with bad attendance records because of sick parents they had to take care of or other horrible circumstances to schools and blind school (including having them fit for uniforms)

Ravi, Tulsi, and Anil--three brothers with a horrible school attendance rate, who had dropped out to stay home and take care of their father who has a heart disease.

-picking up children from the side of the street to bring them back to Manav Sadhna and give them a big bath (which involved a hose, us rolling our salwaars/pants up, getting shampoo and soap on our hands, and grabbing the nearest laughing child's head to rub in the shampoo while getting drenched),

-convincing leprosy community parents to send their children with us to a hostel-and-school so they could get educated instead of staying in the slum

-sitting in discussions the staff members have with groups of children and countless poor people seeking help at Manav Sadhna dealing with a variety of issues: health, hygiene, studying, working, service, ideals, spirituality, etc.

-classes for behns and families at the Tekra community center that teach: how to save money (they are taught to put aside 5-10 Rs. a day), family planning, etc. 

-and many other projects.

 

Manav Sadhna and all of its projects are funded through private donations, except for the Anganwadi project for which they receive some government aid. Almost all of the staff members at Manav Sadhna still live in slums, and yet have devoted their lives to bettering the lives of the people in their community.

 

I can't begin to write all of the little acts of kindness, honestly, and selflessness that I saw all around me, like the 12 year old girl who lived in the slum next to the Angandwadi I visited who didn't know me but walked me all the way to a  function I was late for at the municipality school and made sure I was with people I knew before leaving me, 

Darshana--after having arrived at the municipality school

Darshana on her 13th birthday. She was very excited about her new clothes. She lives right next to Chetna Behn's Anganwadi.

or Ashwin, who is part of the card project, who carefully saved my 50 Paise coin that I had accidentally left beside him one day and returned it to me the next day, making sure I put it in my purse after I forgot it again, 

Ashwin.

He actually likes to spell his name Ashvin.

or the staff member who refused to use a letter from the Minister of Education to get ahead in the endless lines at the civil hospital to get a disability certificate for a deaf boy because he did not want to take the place of someone who was truly in need of help at the hospital, 

or the village woman who left her in-laws and her husband because they did not want her to work outside of the house to come teach at an Anganwadi, which she swears is her reason for living. "These children are my life," she'd tell me with a huge smile every time I visited her Anganwadi, "I hate Sundays because I don't get to see them."

Chetna Behn--who always has a smile on her face

To learn more about Manav Sadhna, please go to www.manavsadhna.org