Providing Life Skills to 300 Girls living in Slums

Dear friends,

Warm greetings from Vacha team. We hope you are well and taking care. Pandemic COVID 19 has spread everywhere.  Three women in of our team and their families got the virus. There was one serious case but, thankfully nothing untoward happened. The rest were quarantined and two families have come through from it. We keep our fingers crossed because none of the kids we work with has been infected so far. This is amazing because many live-in areas that have high incidence of the pandemic. Mumbai heads in the patient count in India as does our Maharashtra State. We have mentioned earlier that 60 percent of residents in Mumbai live on 6 percent of the land. These are very poor families of migrant workers who have, over the years settle down on a hill, at the side of a creek or in what used to be old villages in Mumbai. The homes are of 100 to 200 sq. ft., have dark narrow lanes, public toilets for all and generally.

The pandemic has created terrible situations. Many have gone back to their poor villages from where they had come to evade poverty. People staying on have lost their jobs as maids, waiters, fruit and vegetables sellers, drivers, shop assistants and more. Participants in our Girls’ Empowerment Programme have shown their leadership by taking on dissemination of grocery in a disciplined way. For 3 months no public transport was available to visit bastis (‘slums’. Some of us sneaked in to contact girls and spend time with them for emotional support and counselling. However now, with fast rising number of cases, we remain in touch with every single participant over telephone for providing emotional support, ‘hand holding’ and discussing immediate problems and find solutions. The govt. has declared substantial free ration of 5 kilo wheat of rice to all Below Poverty Line (BPL) families holding a proper ration card. Our problem has been that not all poor families have ration cards either because it is with their extended families in their villages or because they had not fully grasped the cards’ importance. We give them at least 2 to 3 kilos of rice, 2 kilos of Lentils and pulses are provided to each family as also 2 kilos of oil and sugar and soap and sanitary pads for hygiene.

All schools, including the State managed school for the poor, have their classes only through internet. Most of the families of girls do not have smart phones even. Where they have, 2 or 3 children cannot attend their classes as they are at different stages in school. Vacha’s curriculum for the youth – mostly girls – has also been digitalised. We have been requesting funds for buying Smartphones at least. We have bought some through a donation but we are going to need more.  We are also buy in data packs for our students so that they can access school classes and also Vacha’s digital classes. No books or stationary has been provided by poor schools. Vacha managed to get text books and stationary for all. Primary schools of Municipality used to provide learning materials, uniform, shoes and more. All of it is totally stopped. Students also used to get a mid-day meal that is no longer available.

We and our girl students are working hard to survive. Unfortunately we are not able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our hopes are still alive because digitalising our curriculum and provision of survival material will help us through this dark period.

We are deeply thankful to all donors for supporting us in these terrible times.

Sincerely,

Yagna Parmar