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Karm Marg News letter July to September 13

The new beginnings that started at Karm Marg last quarter have started blossom in this quarter.

The registration of Karm Marg has brought with it the needed recognition in the government departments as a Child Care Institution. The positive feedbacks from the children regarding the care, food and environment at Karm Marg have brought us appreciation of the Government. The proof of this is that we are now at the top in their list when it comes to assigning new children to homes.

We are proud of this recognition and appreciate the sincere efforts put in by all at Karm Marg.

Important update

The good reputation of Karm Marg with Govt authorities however, has brought new challenges with it. Children are being sent regularly by Child Welfare Commits for short stay. Some of these are converted to permanent stay due to two reasons, first, the restoration efforts of the child by the government does not materialize, secondly and more importantly the child feels very comfortable, secure in the homely environment at Karm Marg.

As we mentioned in our last newsletter it is difficult for us to take care of new children who are in the habit of running from home. This comes as a surprise even to us as we were experts in taking care of children off the streets who are strong free and very intelligent but, at the same time have many behaviour problems and suffer from trauma. In the last years we have become used to working with children who are staying with us long-term are used to a home kind of situation. Most of our old staff who was working with street children in the past has changed. We are having to once again train our new staff to deal with these children and are sure that within a year they will be perfectly trained.

In the short time of their stay at Karm Marg we use every opportunity to provide them with counselling and other help as needed. These children are very insecure and hesitate to take part in productive activities. They need more time in reaching a comfort level where they feel at home. Activities such as sports, craft, painting etc. at Karm Marg help the existing children to form bonds with the new ones.

Long term counseling and trust building efforts are needed for them to stay at homes such as Karm Marg. The fluid situation that arises due to short stays also affects the existing ones and a huge effort is needed to make the situation stable.

From Home

In the beginning of July we decided to get Identity cards for all our children, young adults and alumni. Once they leave KM they face many problems with opening bank accounts, applying for ration cards, driving licenses, passports, any kind of govt. benefits or even to rent a room without proper identity proofs. On the 9th September we organised an Aadhar card camp for all the children, staff and alumni of Karm Marg. Everyone associated with KM was invited also some of the villagers came to get their cards made.

Our next step is to open bank accounts for all the children above 14 yrs of age.

Total children present at home – 33 (Girls : 15, Boys : 18) Youth above 18 receiving skill training and higher education – 5 New Children, short stay – 9 New children, permanent stay – 2 Children restored with their families - 4 Runaway–1 Direct Beneficiaries in this quarter – 54

On the 17th September we had a visit from children and youth from a small tribal school in Jharkhand through the Manzil exchange program. They stayed for a night. We all learnt a lot from one another about each other’s culture and ways of life. It was the first visit to the big city for the children and youth from Jharkhand and they were quite thrilled by this new exposure. They played Anishtakshari and had dinner together and all the children enjoyed each other’s company.

On the 10th of July, Karm Marg organized a Child Protection committee meeting. 7 elected members were present at the meeting. They came from different NGOs in Faridabad district.

The main focus points for discussion were child rights, protection of their rights and responsibilities, to protect their rights to survival, food, shelter, medical care, education, Rules & Regulations of children protection committee.

An internal meeting of child Protection committee was held in July, all the three appointed members from among the children used this meeting to resolve any issues.

Rajkumar and Vipin along with Divyapraksh went to an art fair in Delhi on the 15th of September. Rajkumar and Vipin enjoyed themselves and were very impressed by the art fair. They also gained a lot of valuable knowledge.

All the children enjoyed themselves and want to do more of these kinds of more exposure trips.

The Shop a well established store in Delhi, that sell handicrafts, home furnishings and clothing, started an initiative to give exposure to our children to printing and embroidery on a large scale. 25 Children participated in this workshop. We divided the children into three groups, they went to their factory to observe and to try their hand at block printing, screen printing and tie-dye printing. Each of the participants printed a piece of cloth which was stitched by the shop tailor into a shirt. The children were thrilled to see clothes made out of their own paintings. They are now saving these clothes for the Dushehra festival celebrations in October. The children also made bracelets, key chains and earrings for themselves. The entire workshop ended with a delicious lunch served by Kabir and Aishwarya . We are very grateful to Kabir and Aishwarya and the entire staff at The Shop for their warm welcome and helping the children to learn new skills. They also are also open to taking those youth who are interested for further training.

Health

With the beginning of the monsoon we started to take preventive care of the children. Nonetheless some of them fell sick with viral fever. As they had learnt during the summer vacation they made natural mosquito repellents with the help of our staff and care takers.

We have also started making soaps, shampoos and cleansers for personal use on a regular basis. And also had success with self made remedies for stomach problems, antiseptic creams and eye drops.

Raju our special boy fall sick regularly and needed lots of extra care, this time he was found to have high thyroid in August. He is taking medicine as per the doctor’s advice.

Abdul was finally diagnosed with TB and has started his treatment. He is taking his medicine regularly and the treatment will be completed in the month of October 2013.

A new boy, who recently joined KM, has also tried to run away repeatedly, He is also attending counseling sessions.

A new girl came to us in the beginning of July, she suffering from physiological disorder problems and is very unstable. As we don’t know her past it’s very difficult to cure her. She is receiving regular counselling and medicines. We need to observe her constantly as she is in danger of running away or committing suicide. She has already run away a number of times each time she was found and brought back. All the staff and children are very alert and careful while dealing with her. We expect the continuous counselling and individual attention that is provided to her will build her trust and confidence.

Education and career

• Indu with Veena’s help has designed and put into practice a new model for non formal education. These methods strengthen the basic knowledge and skills of the children. The children, especially the smaller ones are able to learn and understand much better now and there has been a significant inmprovement in their grades at school.

The educational technique uses art and craft to explain English grammar, maths and natural phenomenon and help the children grasp them easily. Indu uses crossword games with emoticons to figure out the names of each emotion in English and Hindi; find missing letters; make new words and pronunciation. They also invented games and stories to identify colours and plants as well as to spell their names correctly. The children like these sessions very much and have been participating with great interest and enthusiasm. They now want us to organise many more similar sessions.

• Vipin and Shyra who are in 12th take extra tuition in science subjects, in return they help the younger ones by conducting extra tuition classes for them. Indu started doing Math’s tuitions for the senior students.

• Mr. Thomas has started English communication and computer classes. The children participate in groups divided according to ability and age.

• Our special children are gaining confidence as they learn more new skills. They are now able to write their names in English and Hindi, as well as recite the whole alphabet. Mahua started communicating in sign language. Raju started speaking short words for the first time, Though he cannot pronounce them properly yet, he is able to make people understand what he is trying to convey. Manu is learning the skills of an office assistant. Poonam and Anamika are good at cooking and at the same time they learning how to take care of sales. Their teachers share their pride at the progress made by our special children during the parent teacher meetings.

• Vikranta is training with a friend who has started an innovative street food stall. As he is more interesting in computer and electrical repair work we will try to enroll him in a course or find a good apprenticeship that he can start in October.

Sports, activities and Celebrations

Indu also conducted a workshop where the children could learn traditional styles of Indian painting such as Warli and Madhubani.

August this year saw a number of festivals

On the occasion of Eid (9th Aug) they organised a special lunch. The older children with the help of the staff and Shabila made special Kachoris and Sewian. On the 15th of August we all celebrated Independence day at home. The national flag was hoisted and every one enjoyed special refreshments.

The Rakhi festival was on 20th Aug. On the 18th they made their own rakhis. The girls got to choose whom they wanted to nominate as their brothers and tied rakhis on them. A special lunch and lots of sweets were served.

Children also celebrated Janamashtmi, Krishna’s birthday.

The children at KM have always been interested in sports, every day they do regular exercise and play games. This time we collaborated with the district sports club, who provide the venue and a coach. Our children can now learn field sports like football, badminton, tennis etc.. They go every Saturday and Sunday to the Haryana district sports club (Khel Parisar) to play football and badminton.

This quarter we started showing films to the children on a regular basis. We make a selection of films which are different from Bollywood such as animations and documentaries. The movies are accessed on websites dedicated to children. They have seen films on the Indian scientist and ex President APJ Abdul Kalam who came frorm a similar background to many of them. They have also seen animations based on nursery rhymes and children’s stories. Most of the children, especially the smaller ones, enjoy these movies and want to see more.

Volunteers

An old friend and volunteer at Karm Marg came visiting again and taught the children new rope tricks and games. All the children were very excited to learn tightrope walking and enjoyed themselves.

A new volunteer Hanne from Norway came to Karm Marg for a week’s stay. During her stay she thought the children how to make different kinds of Pasta. Everyone had a pasta dinner that evening. She also gifted DVD player to the children. Hanne had a wonderful time at KM and enjoyed her stay very much. She hopes to visit Karm Marg again in the near future.

Staff improvement

Regular staff meetings are held every month to discuss problems and improve the quality of work. Staff leadership and accountability are a major part of these discussions.

A one day orientation program was organized by ICDS and conducted by ICPS on 30th Aug. The program was regarding collaboration between govt agencies and NGOs. Amrendra and Divya prakash represented KM.

Jugaad

As our salary grant comes to an end this year we are focusing on generating more income from Jugaad. As we now have more and better paid staff, generating more funds is tough job and needs a lot of time, dedication and hard work.

season. As this is the main time for annual sales, we look forward to higher sales and feedback from We have completed our new pricing and are working on a new catalog, website as well as online market ventures to promote our products. We also have a new range of products ready to be introduced to the market in October on time for the festival our buyers.

Number of women and youth benefited by Jugaad - 90 (doing production)

Number of young adult under training in Jugaad – 27 (part time 4 hours to eight hours in a week depend what time they get after schooling and other activity)

In Screen printing -10 In Paper Unit – 13 In Stitching unit – 4

Special achievement

As some of you may know, Uttrakhand the Himalayan state north of Delhi experienced devastating floods this year. The damage to property and lives has been so extensive that all the relief efforts of the Government are not enough. With the help of our friends we started a small initiative to help people affected in Uttrakhand, this is joint venture between three NGOs, Karm Marg, Kadam and Samoolan. We collected around 32 lakh rupees and other relief materials such as tent, medicines, rain coats, and blankets. All the relief materials are distributed with the help of the local NGO Agaas Foundation. A part of the funds are used to help children to buy stationery, school dress, school bags and other school related materials so they can start going to school. Most of them lost all their belongings in the flood. We are also working with our local partner to plan and start long term sustainable initiatives for the future because most of the people who are affected lost their sources lively hood as well as the earning members of their family.

We are committing ourselves for a year and once the sustainability and lively hood work gets underway, we will gradually withdraw.

Needs

Generate Fund for Salary Full time Counsellor Need a small car for daily need mainly for medical purpose and taking short stay children for govt department.

Web Site – www.karmmarg.org / www.jugaad.org Email – info@karmmarg.org / info@jugaad.org Face book page – Karmmarg / Jugaad

• New_letter_July_September_13.pdf (PDF)