By Sonal Shukla and Yagna Parmar | Director, Project Coordinator
Friends,
First of all, please accept our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. A greeting card is attached showing girls at the end of a craft workshop. Thank you for making them so happy and for contributing to their training in life skills and leadership.
Christmas comes within 6 to 8 weeks of Diwali so Holiday atmosphere picks up again. There are many Christmas parties and church events in Mumbai. End of the year is a big event since the January first is the beginning of the common era that we all follow. There are many lunar calenders for other holidays. During Diwali holidays, besides the health camps, two fairs were held in two communities. The focus was on health and gender with a lot of fun activities. One of the workshops was on simple data collection and small surveys inside their own bastis (slums). They are quite excited about finalizing their questionnaires to collect information. One group will do it on harassment of women and girls in streets and the other on the functioning of ration shops that sell basic essentials like food grains, fuel etc. to the poor at rates subsidized by the govt. These girls are in 14 plus age group.
The good news to share is about Rehana, 18, who had a major problem in eating. Due to a fall some years back her upper and lower jaws totally lost their alignment and her one cheek had lost its shape. After a while the family gave up treatment in a public hospital, possibly due to ill treatment by staff, long distance or plain ignorance. Rehana was also scared of surgery. Some from our team convinced her for its need. One arranged for lower medical costs in a semi private hospital. We have encouraged the family to raise some funds and we will pay the rest from what you have donated to us. We are told the surgery was successful and Rehana will be able eat through mouth after some years. She had been taking only liquids through a straw all these years. She is about to leave hospital and we will be able to share pictures with you next time.
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