Support a home for disadvantaged children in India

Joy of Giving!

This Children's day was special. Our children felt a deep sense of gratitude. They felt they individually had more than many of the street kids they saw around the area along the village canal in Faridabad. So they chose a few bits of whatever they could spare...their clothes, pins, sweets, biscuits, erasers, pencils etc and packed them into small bags to be given away to those more unfortunate. We all piled onto our bus and reached the basti(slum area) around the main drain where these families stayed. What followed was something they hadn't expected at all...There was a near stampede outside their bus, with little kids, teenagers carrying baby in arms and adults, jostling, almost snatching away the gifts. The small kids being scolded by their parents to grab more things, older ones climbing over really young ones trying to tug at our kid's clothes to get more things....
It was an eye opener for them. The kids were evidently scared and shaken up and could barely get off the bus. So we decide to abort the plan and come back later. In a discussion with them, a day later, it was heartwarming so see how much more empathy they had towards them. Most wanted to go back and share more than just their little packets. They wanted to meet them regularly, talk to them about improving their hygiene, manners and lives. They were appalled seeing such young parents, barely older than themselves and vowed they wouldn't make the same mistakes.

They felt so fortunate to be living a life where they were safe and not left wanting of basic needs in life. Always takers till now, their experience as givers was what made them most aware of the differences in the way people lived. More power to such interesting experiences and cheers to the big hearted, empathic and enthusiastic children of Karm Marg!

Community Workshops

• Realising the growing need of the community youth, we also organised a 3 day workshop on Gender with around 50 children for our NGO and students from the senior government school in our area. The focus was on life skills, gender equality and HIV/AIDS. We roped in a professional agency Modi Care Foundation who have a lot of experience in conducting such workshop.It was very new experience for the students because they have never attended this kind of workshop before. Also the girls found it very interesting because there is no one in the family whom they can discuss all these things with. It gave both the girls and boys a very different perspective.They are very keen to attend more such workshops in future and want their friends to join in too. This has been a very heartening experience for us.

• Another interesting workshop we organised for the rural women of our area, our staff and young adults, was a three day residential workshop by trainers from Jalkumbhi, organised by INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage). Jalkumbhi is a kind of water reed which grows wild locally and can be dried and used to weave products out of it just like rope/wild grass. These unique techniques can now be incorporated in our products made for income generation too.

It's been a year since we have started a library project with a local government primary school in the rural village where we are.There are approximately 150 students from different grades who attend our storytelling sessions now.

With parents busy with farming, cattle raising and household activities, they are often left alone most of the day. Specially the girls who are often have to take on household chores of cooking, cleaning and looking after their younger siblings once they go back home. For them instilling the love of books can really help them connect to the outer world, encourage them to read on their own and inspire them to continue their education.