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Success Story

Poonam came to Karm Marg at the age of 5 along with two younger sisters in the year 2000. As we interacted with her more, we discovered that she is a slow learner and has a speaking disorder. She was full of anger and resorted to physical violence when others didn’t understand what she wanted to convey. Communication was a huge issue highlighted more by the fact that her IQ pegged at 55.
Along with a lot of love, care and warmth at the home by the caregivers to win her confidence, what worked brilliantly was sending her to a school for children with special needs. First she attended Sahyog Training centre where she learnt how to read and write basics. Meanwhile we discovered that she had a lot of potential in doing methodical repetitive tasks. So we arranged for her vocational training at Shaurya Foundation. She was quick to learn so many things like packaging, candle making and baking. They moved her up to training her in stock taking and sale of products. After a year of training, we were very impressed with the confidence she exhibited along with an inherent leadership quality and thorough management skills.
We sent her for further three month skill training to Very Special Arts India in Vasant Kunj, where she learnt block printing, cloth pasting and news paper bag making. She is currently handling Karm Marg’s new bakery unit. Not the one to stay passive, her interest in a Beautician’s course is now consuming her full time and she is under training one of Karm Marg’s alumni who runs a training centre cum beauty parlour near by. According to her mentor, she is very diligent and has almost learnt waxing, hair massage, manicure, pedicure and facial.         

With all these skills in her kitty, we are sure that she will soon be able to become financially independent. Seeing her progress makes us all really proud of her.  

Special task 

This whole quarter was busy with receiving and discharging children because of  Muskan Operation 2, which is a focused initiative taken by Govt and Police department to reunite missing children with their families. It was really taxing time for us to deal with so many new children as well as co-ordinate with the government departments and the police at the same time. In July itself, we had to deal with 35 such cases. Most new children placed with us during this operation for short term care came with severe behavioural issues due to emotional and sexual abuse. We were expected to fulfil our duty to provide them emotional security and support as well as find out their family whereabouts. Doing both in such short time, under so much pressure, for so many children was a tough task requiring a lot of skill and emotional strength and a logistical nightmare. But we are proud to report that we successfully managed to restore all the children to their biological families. A lot of learning took place along with the experience that has been an invaluable addition to the care giving and co-ordination skills of the staff. Dealing with the triggering of emotions and the upheaval it brought into the lives of children who are under long term care with us continues. It will take a few months for them to settle down again into a regular rhythm.

Beneficiaries at a glance

This quarter we had a 100 different children staying at our home in batches. Our direct beneficiaries were 122. And we had 248 indirect beneficiaries. It brings the total number of beneficiaries to 370 children, women and youth. Our efforts to provide more outreach services impacting more people have been bearing fruit.

News from Home

 On 20th July, 20 of our children went to Kiran Nadar Museum to see the wonderful exhibition of Himmat Shah's work organised by Art Reach. All the children were very enthusiastic to see the different forms of art. They also got a chance to do some painting and art work.

In August, 10 of our kids went to Creativity Adda (an after school program) in Dariyaganj to participate in Dhamaal Chawkdi program. It is an alternate form of learning, through peer to peer interaction amongst children from various NGOs. Tara and Shama conducted a workshop on ‘Making a Planter’ with plastic bottles and also put up a stall for showcasing Jugaad products.  It was an exciting day for the children as they learnt so many new things there and got the opportunity to participate in many different activities.    

All the children visited Neighbourhood Woof, an animal care shelter to celebrate their first anniversary. This NGO is run by Ayesha Christina who has been a supporter of Karm Marg and helps us with all our dog related issues.

Deepak, our alumni, who has successfully completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree has started taking art class at KM. Children love attending his workshop. Together they have made a beautiful mural on the wall. The way he has honed his talent is an inspiration for the children. 

In September Tanu Shree Singh, another regular supporter conducted a storytelling and greeting card making workshop for all the younger children.

Seven of our older girls performed a theatrical piece in their school under the government’s ‘Beti Bachao Beti Padhaao' campaign. They ideated, wrote, acted and directed it all on their own. Their play received much appreciated by the teachers and local village Sarpanch. 

Our resident yoga enthusiast Babli did a Yoga demonstration at her school in the presence of village Sarpanch. They all were very impressed by her yoga skill and she was awarded Rs 500 as a token of their appreciation.

Skill Training & Alternative Learning  

Two of our young boys Rahul and Abdul had no interest in going to a traditional school. They were becoming withdrawn and disruptive. In spite of being very intelligent, they were absolutely disconnected with the formal way of learning. So once they turned 14, we decided to send them for an alternative learning program. They have been attending Creativity Adda in Daryiganj for three months now. They are learning the art of slow cooking and baking. They are also exploring how to use different kinds of millet flour in everyday cooking to add to the existing nutrition value. The best result has been that they are now enthusiastic about learning again and treat the children at home with whatever they learn there. The kids tasted their first homemade Pizzas and Momos thanks to Abdul. Rahul got the opportunity to a attend a 4 day cooking workshop at Namah resort,Jim Corbett Natinal Park. We are very pleased to see them happy and excited with life again.

Library project 

On 20^th September we organised a storytelling session titled ‘Swar’, for the local Government Primary School and Paramhansa Sr. Sec. School. The workshop was conducted by Rishabh Mittal a very talented storyteller and theatre artist. Over 200 children were absolutely captivated with his theatrical storytelling style. The language content, the message of self confidence and the discussion post the session made it even more meaningful.

 Health Care

On 6th Sept, doctors from the local hospital came to KM to conduct an awareness program on Dengue and Chickengunia. Both these seasonal fevers have been creating havoc around Delhi. They gave good tips and cleared many doubts that our staff had.  

Mahua fall sick in the month of July and was diagnosed with Pneumonia. Samadhan was also admitted in AIIMS hospital after being diagnosed with Dengue. Samadhan has fully recovered and Mahua is still under treatment. Fortunately due to timely intervention and natural measures like drinking Giloi concoction, all other children managed to escape unscathed in this epidemic. 

We can now clearly see the benefits of living an alternate lifestyle, growing and using our fresh produce and using traditional natural recipes to booster good health. Living in harmony with nature has been our vision and is immensely satisfying to see it bear such positive and therapeutic results.