By Veena lal | founder President
Karm Marg now has uninterrupted Power supply
There was such joyful awe in the voices of the children when they called me this morning. They'd called to say thank you. The reason being that it was the first time they had slept peacefully the whole night, under a fan. For over two decades now, we had all spent hot, sultry days and nights without electricity and now all because of the solar power system installed by Somfy Foundation, we had most of the time continuous power supply.
At that moment, I realized that this was something extraordinary. The children had experienced what most of us take for granted.
This project started in April when the team from Somfy Foundation India visited Karm Marg under their CSR project and felt the need of put a solar system keeping in mind the shoddy supply of power in our part of rural Faridabad.
Somfy Foundation, thank you so much for the comfort you had given to the children and the staff of Karm Marg.
Teaching Fellowship 2018
Artreach India selects an NGO every year to give their children exposure and on hand experience in different forms of art and this year they selectedKarmMarg. On the 29th of July, they started this project and held their first workshop with us.
Their main aim is to work with a group of twenty children between the ages 14 to 18 (all of whom have some artistic inclination, some of whom wish to pursue art-related careers) selected by the NGO, for ten months. The artist introduces the children to art by an engaging and meaningful program of planned workshops and field trips, which culminates in an exhibition and publication at the end of a period of ten months. Beyond the teaching of technical skills and insight into art history and aesthetics the artist encourages the children to use art as a tool for the critical exploration of the world and encourages each one of them to find an individual expressive voice.
Sheru the Dog
Our beloved Sheru (our four-legged family member) left us in end of September. He came to us because the area he was living became a threat to his life as some of the humans started mistrusting him and thought he was a threat to them. One of our kind friends rescued him and requested us to give him shelter. With lots of love and care, he started trusting humans again and showed his love and affection for all the children and other members of Karm Marg. He became our best buddy and lived with us for more than 10 years.
Sheru you will be missed for the unconditional love and affection you gave us.
Some stories of the quarter
We started our Airtel Delhi Half Marathon fundraising program with great enthusiasm. The marathon which is scheduled to take place on the 21st of October has been a good platform for us to raise funds and make people aware of our project. We started planning our strategy as to how we were going to approach our current donors and friends to donate and to help us spread the word which would enable us to connect with more people who’d like to support our project.
Friendship day was celebrated with a showcase of the summer theatre workshop. The play talked about the shortage of water and how to preserve it and also talked about becoming a friend with our mother nature.
Communication classes for sign language are going quite well and most of the children and staff have started communicating using sign language. Thanks a lot, Oshin Dhawan, for your hard work and teaching us a new way to communicate. The children are really enjoying using this and it’s much easier for them to communicate with our four family members who are deaf.
To celebrate the festival of Rakhi, all the children made some beautiful Rakhi’s by themselves and tied them to each other as well as the dogs and trees....even the rooster had one.
Interns Garima and Shikha joined Jugaad to get exposure about how production units work. They also learned how to design new products with waste materials.
Jugaad
It was that time of the year when we develop our new product and sample for buyers and upcoming bazaars. We also got busy making a new catalog and the marketing and promotion of our product range.
Conducted a series of workshop for the rural women and girl to trained them in stitching and paper bag making skill, so they can join the income generation program and become self-reliant.
On Rakhi Festival our women group produced a range of handmade Rakhi’s made out of waste cloth, which was quite popular.
Jugaad participates in Dastkar nature bazar which was held in Bangalore in the month of August. It was not as good as we anticipated as sale point, which makes us rethink about participating and showcasing our product in the different exhibition as it is not profitable anymore.
Links:
By Veena lal and Preeti Agarwal Mehta | founder and project leader
By Veena Lal | founder
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