Aid Delhi Newsletter November 2007

Association for India’s Development

November 2007

Delhi Chapter Newsletter

From the Editor’s Desk

Table of Contents From the editors desk

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Project Updates Aashayen AID Gurgaon AID Prayas Parichay Khoj Youth Task Force TARA Gudhahi ke lal

2 2 2 3 3 4 4 4

Volunteer Speak Darshan Mehra Articles Back Office Blunders – Arun Raj Most Wonderful Creation - Sonia

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Poem: Dolly Sharma

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Toon of the Month

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Photo of the Month – Shilpi

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Photo of the Month – Sonia

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Information corner – Selva

12

Contact us

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The month of November has been full of festivals; it started with Diwali and then came in Children’s day. Parichay children were the first to celebrate Diwali on 7th of November followed by Khoj children on 8th followed by Prayas. Hopefully most of our volunteers had a cracker free Diwali. Diwali is a festival of lights where lots of Diya’s and Candles are lit up. Hope all the glittering diya’s and candles add more brightness to our lives. Then came children’s day on November 14th, Even though it was not celebrated in a grand manner in our projects but everyone do interacted with children in the weekends about that. A few activities were planned at Prayas but wasn’t executed. Also as a celebration of Children’s day and also as a celebration of the second anniversary Khoj did a huge Bal Mela in which around 120 children including the children of Gudhadi ke lal participated along with the parents of few children and 50 volunteers. The event was a dream come true one in which children were running around all the corners and playing, singing and dancing around. This is one such event which every volunteer should have attended. AID Delhi hasn’t been all that active during the month of November but it doesn’t mean that it’s undergoing a down phase. A core team is planning the structure strongly and it will be executed in a proper planned way soon. A volunteer training workshop is planned during the month of December. All our volunteers are requested to attend it. AID India Annual conference is to be held during December 22nd to 24th at Paralekhamundi, Orissa. Registrations are open at http://conference.aidindia.org .

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1

Project Updates: Aashayen

Project Unnati of AID Gurgaon is going well. In In the coming months, we will work towards replicating the Unnati Project in other bastis of Gurgaon. We also plan to organize a picnic for these children and a health check-up camp in Unnati School.

Hope my words find you in sheer bliss :D ... I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to write any updates.. There is no major development to be seen. Nitin & me turned up this month, we took our classes.. Afternoon classes are going regularly.. W need to look ahead, reset our goals & means to achieve them.. Let us all stregthen the bond we share.. 4 pillars are better than 40 standing sticks... We need to build up a strong foundation today so tomorrow anyone can take up the onus of cementing the bricks... Together we can ...........Together we will................. :) Dolly Sharma

Pallavi Tyagi [email protected]

[email protected]

Project Updates: AID Gurgaon

Project Updates: AID Prayas

Project Unnati of AID Gurgaon is going well. In November, a day before Diwali, we celebrated the festival of lights with the children in their classroom. We had a drawing session in the class where children drew beautiful pictures of lamps and candles. After the drawing session, we distributed sweets to the class. However, the festival season resulted in a slight decrease in the attendance of these children at school.

Two years of inception of PRAYAS has seen a lot of different people coming in, changing objectives & even more engaging children turning up to study. Today a set of 25 children have been put to school ,a small achievement for our team, but still a considerable point of change in the CHILDREN's life. This month at Prayas due to the festive season being around, many of our key FRIENDS were missing. But, we did celebrate DIWALI with the children, with a small evaluation of their knowledge levels through a test paper. This was followed up by a dance party, with the floor taken over by Nikhil & Arun with Sabreen & Ishrat taking female leads ;) A fun day which we all enjoyed.

On the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) front, we had organized a Diwali exhibition of handmade accessories made by Literacy India students in our office – Evalueserve, from November 5-7, 2007. Further, in the last week of November, we had organized a resource collection drive in Evalueserve for collecting warm winter clothes. We are going to handover the collected clothes to Goonj.

2

We are looking for new & old FRIENDS of PRAYAS to join us and support us in this project in the smallest of ways. Even if you have not been active with PRAYAS, you still have done a great thing by being part of the team. We request you to help in small ways that you can, through - A Meal A Month Grant for Prayas, or with being available on request for volunteer support.

Project Updates: Parichay

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We are looking for FRIENDS who can engage with children for: 1. Tell a Moral story & engage the children ( Once a Month with the Children ) - 2 FRIENDS 2. Manage a nutrition program - A training & review program for managing nutrition& health and vaccination history of the children. - 2 FRIENDS 3. Sing a song or train children on a musical instrument ( Specific child will be selected for this ) - 1 FRIEND

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Finally we just want to say that every bit of effort that we put is a commited & directed effort. The children expect a lot from us & if we do not deliver its a failure from our end. We invite you to be with us and be a FRIEND & DOSTH to our children @ PRAYAS.

•

Prayas classes venue has been shifted to a room inside the community at Nayabans, Sec 16 NOIDA, and timings will be from: SATURDAY : 4.30 to 6.30 pm / SUNDAY : 3.00 to 5.00 pm.

•

Please check with Arun - 9910908774 / Darshan 9818361122 for any information about Prayas.

We have started a new center near the old site of Parichay. The new group will work on various issues prevalent in a nearby community. One immediate aim is to encourage the boys of the community to pass higher secondary from NOS. We'll soon submit a a more detailed article on the aims and objectives of the new group. Monthly masala sales at STMicroelectronics was 4,500 (approx.).A new volunteer, Deepti, has expressed her wish to organise creative sessions for the children at Parichay. Diwali Celebrations with the children at Parichay was on 7th of November where the children celebrated Diwlai by lighting candles and firing crackers. Diwali stalls at various companies, sales of Rs.8500 in 2 hours at Atrenta is a highlight and added to that we had a moderate sale of Rs.800 at a stall at Institute of Home Economics and a figure of Rs.2500 at HCL, Noida. We thank the volunteers who put in efforts to put up the stalls in their companies. - Puneeta - Coordinator, Parichay - [email protected] - 9818361122

Mastify Life ;) Friends @ PRAYAS : Anuradha, Neha, Ruchi, Sudha, Sruthi, Arun, Anand, Darshan, Kanan, Nikhil, Raj, Rajat

Project Update : Khoj 1) KHOJ turned two this November, congratulations to all.

Arun Raj [email protected]

2) This month KHOJ organized a Baal Mela on 25th November. The highlights of the fare were: a) Around 100 kids participated b) Over 30 volunteers were present to coordinate various events c) The event was jointly sponsored by Monnet Foundation and Mrs.Sangeeta

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Project Update : Tara

Kids and volunteers had great fun. The credit of the successful fare goes to the volunteers. Pictures for the same have been uploaded at gallery section of KHOJ website

The month of November started with a new experience for the children of TARA as they enthralled the audience of MTNL Health Mela on 3rd of November by a dance performance on A.R. Rehman’s song “ guru’s of peace”. The volunteers trained the children for this big event trained the children

3) Much awaited KHOJ website launched (http://khojfoundation.org) Credit goes to CAR* (* not willing to get his/her name published)

Then on the 14th of November TARA celebrated children’s day. The members organized a cricket match taking the idea from AID Delhi’s recent tournament. The game was played between the members and the children and the children won. On this occasion two of our very humble and excited guests Ravi and Roocheca did a little exercise for the children, they translated two English rhymes in Hindi and taught these to the children via singing and playing guitar.

4) Every Saturday Kids workshops was conducted at Prabhat Tara 5) Every Tuesday KHOJ kids visited American School 6) Classes at all centers are going smoothly

A notable thing to be glad about was that two of Tara’s children Ramphal and Brijesh topped in their first semester in school and five of Tara’s children came first in a drawing competition organized in their school.

-Ritesh Kumar [email protected]

Things went smoothly in the month of November in TARA but unfortunately two of our members left and the search for new volunteers has begun. Planning for winters has started. -Kulsum Rasheed

Project Update : Youth Task Force

Project Update : Gudhai ke lal

YTF had no meeting this month so nothng to update.

"Gudhadi ke laal" is a project undertaken by a group of employees at the IBM office in Vasant Kunj C Block, with involvement from some other volunteers from the community. The project targets children of migrant construction workers. A lot of construction of new buildings going is on in this part of Vasant Kunj, and the construction workers live in adjoining temporary slum clusters. The project was motivated by the sight of children wandering around all day with nothing to do. An inquiry revealed that most of the children could not even recognize the Hindi alphabet (a few of them were in a better position, since they had previously attended school).

NSS's RTI awareness team i.e. Natasha and Lavanya met Vivek Raman PIO of IIT Delhi. Interviewed him about various aspects of RTI for about 2.5 hours. - Abhinav Kumar Gupta [email protected]

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The group conducts class sessions, one hour per day (evening in weekdays, morning in weekends), wherein the goal is mainly to teach reading and writing in Hindi, and also some basic arithmetic. The teaching is inspired by and modeled on the methodology of another similar (but larger) project in Delhi, namely Khoj. There is a lot of satisfying progress in the seven months since the project was started. The future plans are to build on the initial success in education, and also to expand to other activities such as crafts, structured games, general knowledge and hygiene. These activities would be of great value to these children, who have limited exposure beyond their small world. It would also be nice to expand the scope to cover other slum clusters in the area (currently only one cluster is being covered). For all this to happen there is a pressing need for volunteers. The contact persons are K V Raghavan and N V Krishna .

ऐसा िबकुल भी नहीं है िक मुझे अंमेजी (English) भाषा के ूयोग से कोई !यि"ग त दख ु हो ,बिक मेरा तो मानना है िक अंमेजी सव*मा+य वैि,क (-लोबल ) भाषा का दजा* प ा चुकी है ! और आज जब तकनीक और िवकास ने रा4 की सीमाओं को समा6 सा कर िदया है तो एक सव*मा+य वैि,क भाषा का उदग म अवँयंभावी है ! इस ;ि<कोण से अंमेजी भाषा का >ान होना अिनवाय* सा लग ता है ,लेिकन याद रहे िक “िह+दी” हमारी मातृ भाषा है ! और अग र बडे शहरC के तथाकिथत बडे िशEा संःथान से प ढा-िलखा नौजवान/ नवयुवती यह कहे िक “ मुझे िह+दी प ढने,िलखने या बोलने मK किठनाई होती है “ तो यह हमारी रा4ीय सMयता व संःकृ ित प र आघात है !

--By Raghavan

मO कई ऐसे !यि"यC को जानता हँू जो िह+दी का उRचारण भी अंमेजी की तरह करते हO , और अंमेजी

Volunteer Speak – Darshan Mehra मुझसे

को उRच भाषा का दजा* दे ते हO ! जबिक मेरा ऐसा मानना है िक

िह+दी मK कुछ िलखने को कहा ग या है

ूSयेक भाषा अप ने आप मK महान होती है चाहे

,मO िलखना भी चाहता हँू ,प रं तु अप ने िवचारC को

वह मूक – बिधर !यि" की “ इशारC वाली भाषा “ ही

कलमब[ करने मK एक बाधा आ रही है और वह है

UयC न हो !

एकामता !

उप रो" विण*त िVतीय िवषय के बारे मK मेरा

ऐसा नही है िक मO इस अवसर का सदपु योग नही

मत है िक AID (Association for India’s Development

करना चाहता लेिकन मेरे मिंतःक मे तीन अलग -2

– िह+दी मK “भारत िवकास संग ठन” ) के साथ काय*

िवषय चल रहे हO !

करके एक सबसे बडी बात मO जाना हँू ,िक हम AID

िह+दी और प ा]ाSय सMयता का िह+दी

से जुडे युवा, जो िक िशEा ,रोजग ार,प िरवार और

प र ूभाव

समाज के दबावC को ढोते हए ु ,हर Eण अलग -2

ii.)

मेरा AID के साथ अनुभव

सैकडC ूितयोिग ताओं और बाYयताओं

iii.)

Volunteering का मUसद - एक सच

,एक सकाराSमक मानिसकता से मिसत हO !

i.)

िफर सोचा,UयC न तीनC िवषयC प र अप ना ;ि<कोण पेश क_ँ !

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के बावजूद

Article: Back Office Bluders – Arun Raj ऐसी मानिसकता जो समाज और रा4 के िलये The globalization parade always raised one question in my limited thought process – Is this what we do a 4 years Bachelors of technology for, and does it truly depict what we are really capable of? With globalization, our focus dissipated to only satisfying the requirements of a world, which seeks to improve its own comforts and efficiency, rather than looking at tapping and developing resources at hand for solutions to our own issues.

िहतकारी है ! यह मानिसकता है “ िवकास की मानिसकता “ , “ समािजक प िरवत*न की मानिसकता “, और अग र सही श`दC मK बोला जाय तो यह मानिसकता “कमाल” कर सकती है अग र रा4 का हर नाग िरक इस मानिसकता का अनुमहण करे ! मO AID का ध+यवाद क_ँग ा िक मुझे ऐसा मंच

Planning for long-term reliable sources of income, rather than immediate gratification, was what transformed nomads into civilizations. From that perspective then, I question how far-flung are our current plans and the planning of our future sources of income? While 65% of our populace is earning direct or indirect income from varied sources of agricultural activities, we still consider feeding electricity to the rest 35% is of top priority. The 123 Nuclear Deal with the US has overlooked the KIA (Knowledge Initiative for Agriculture education) initiative signed by our honorable prime minister with the US. The deal fails to state any direct relation with our national agrarian crisis. A week ago, I myself was not aware of this sign off and felt rather imperceptive, as most of the media focus also laid on the 123 Deal only.

ूदान िकया,जहाँ मO कई ऐसी मानिसकता वाले युवाओं से िमला ! लेिकन एक बात की तरफ मO Yयान खींचना चाहँु ग ा, िक मानिसकता से aयादा मअcवप ूण* हमारे कृ Sय ( या कम* ) हO िजनसे हम सही मायनC मK एक “समािजक प िरवत*न “ बन सकते हO Volunteering हमK वह मंच ूदान करता है , जहाँ हम इस मानिसकता के साथ अप ने कमd से, समाज के उस वग * के लोग C के जीवन मK “एक प िरवत*न” बन सकते हO िजस वग * को सeा और समाज अनदे खा कर दे ता है ! यह वग * िजसे हमारे जैसे युवा हाथC के सहारे की सबसे aयादा ज_रत है ! वैसे भी सच ही कहा ग या है िक

When they are shifting their low-skill activities to our nation, which has one of the richest levels of intellectual capability in the world, we are just lying down and taking it. If they stand to gain with high cost non-core activities being outsourced to low-cost labor entities like our nation, we again stand to lose such skills developed to low-value jobs. Not just, the blatant under-estimation of our latent skills and capability disgusts me, it leaves me all stressed to see that beyond this underutilization, we are also being underpaid for our skills.

“Helping hands are better than praying lips!!!! “ अग र सारांश िनकालूँ तो यही कहँु ग ा िक Volunteering करने की प ीछे हमारा असल मUसद केवल हम ही जानते हO परं तु अग र हम “ समािजक प िरवत*न “ बनने मK सूआमतम भाग ीदार भी न बन सके तो यह एक Volunteer की सफलता सफलता नही मानी जा सकती !!

Trends are never sustainable and the markets have proven it many a times. Knee-jerk reactions to trends like BPOs, GM seeds, etc., without studying their impact on the long term effects and consequences was bound to recoil in its path with a painful force. We are still ignorant of the pain, as we are high on the ecstasy of stock market growth and $$$s flowing into our system.

इित दश*न मेहरा [email protected]

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Reality Check:
70% of the 1.2 billion people living in poverty are female.
Women account for 50% of all people living with HIV/AIDS globally.
Women do more than 67% of the hours of work done in the world.
They earn only 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property.
Female foeticide in India had increased by 49.2% between 1999-2000.
16,373 women were raped during the year.
45 women were raped every day.
1 woman was raped every 32 minutes.
An increase of 6.7% in the incidents of rape was seen between 1997-2002.
7,895 women were murdered due to dowry.
21 women were murdered every day.
1 woman was murdered due to dowry every 66 minutes.
In India, 6,000 dowry murders are committed each year.

Our government as ever is largely ignorant that this money rests only in the hands of a creamy layer, as estimated 5% of the country. The adverse consequences evident from the shortsighted and immediategratification policy making is a bubble waiting to burst. Now, with the adaptation of certain shallow traditions over-shadowing our years of tradition and culture, we are not able to respect and admire the richness rooted in our past. Blindly accepting a culture of a civilization only hundreds of years old, we voluntarily understate our centuries old culture. Our misguided youth, in pursuit of relatively perceived glitz and glamour have been made insensitive to the fact that real growth will only reflect with the growth of the nation as a whole. We need to set national goals that are both achievable and reasonable, based on the studied conclusions with due respect to our natural ecology. I call you to action my friends. It is a do or die call! Arun Raj [email protected]

Not going more into histories of exploitation and suppression and to cut a long story short…Do these figures ring a bell? Now the whole issue is who is responsible? I am not going to blame Human Rights Commission or any next door male for this. Since it’s about women, the responsibility definitely lies with them. World is changing and so are we but what needs a renovation is the weak mentality of women. Come on ladies! If you won’t then who will. You are blessed with equal rights; all that you need is to realize your rights. If you want to serve…serve yourself first. Your first responsibility is toward your life. You have rights to be happy and enjoy your freedom because you’ll get to live only once. Raise voice against injustice and don’t just bear with it, thinking that it’s your fate.

Article : Most Beautiful Creation – Sonia Singh Proud to be a woman? Why not, considering the fact that we are the most beautiful creation of God. I wonder, if there still exits a reason in this so-called liberalized world to sit back and think whether this creation of God called “women” has actually undergone a transformation? Now, what gives me a reason to think about this well addressed women issue, when it’s actually a time to wrap up the diwali effect, is my confrontation with truths. (Courtesy internet and my so-called world wide experience). The sight of ladies going to jobs depicts a picture of true liberalized world. At the same time, we can also see ladies working day and night to please their family, making compromises and representing an idyllic life. . I have personally met aimless girls, who are tired of their life at the age of 15 and I know some who are Gold medal winners. That means the difference still exists between what we see and what is real, what we want and what we get.

It’s time for a transformation and each one of us must take initiative in educating women around us. Educate women – Enlighten your world. -Sonia Singh [email protected]

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हवस ने मासूिमयत को िफर शम*सार िकया!

Poem : Dolly Sharma

िफर िकसी रावण ने मया*दा को प ार िकया! सौइयो िक भीड़ मे िकसी ने कुछ दे खा नही!

डू ब रहा अप ना न हो, तो कौन हाथ दे ता है !

सुना नही , बोला नही!……............

इन अजनिबयC के शहर मे, कौन साथ दे ता है !

िफर उसी शिमlदग ी मे िसर झुकाया ग या!

मदद को प ुकारता, खून से लथपथ,

िफर एक मौत का , जm मनाया ग या!

िबलखता िचलाता रहे , चाहे वो जब तक!

मौत का जm!… मौत बूढी आंखो िक उhमीदC की!

प र कौन िकसी िक मुसीबत , अप ने सर लेता है !

मौत िकसी के सhमान की!

हर शUस यही कह कर प ला झाड़ लेता है

है वानC की दिनया मे! ु

'िक मेरा भी अप ना प िरवार है !

मौत एक इं सान की!

कई िजhमेदािरयC का, मुझपे भार है !

मौत िज़+दग ी से

मेरे घर मे मेरी प iी, बRचे, माँ है !

िजसे दे ख के जीते थे कई

ये तो रोज़ की बात है , इसमे नया Uया है ! और मO िकसी दसरे के ू जब सब ही खड़े है

मौत िकसी के सुहाग !,

झग डे मे UयC प डू !

िकसी की लाठी की!

तो मO UयC आग े बढंू ? '

मौत िकसी के!

और इसी बीच एक और दम तोड़ दे ता है

उॆ भर के साथी की!

इन अजनिबयC के शहर मे , कौन साथ दे ता है ! अब तो प ढे िबना ही कुछ , प +ना बदलने लग ते है ! 'कुछ होना चािहए ' कह , कुछ और प ढने लग ते है ! रात के बाद िदन जैसे , िदन के बाद रात है ! सच कहा , इसमे Uया नया , ये रोज़ की बात है ! िफर एक मौत हई ु , एक सप ने ने दम तोड़ िदया ! िफर िकसी ने िकसी, अप ने को अकेला छोड़ िदया ! रोज़ की बात है ! िवदा करते न सोचा होग ा , लौट िफर न आएग ी ! िजसे दे ख के जीते थे

भी aयादा, अज़ीज़ एक सप ने की!

वो िजंदा जलाई जायेग ी

िफर िकसी का िचराग भुaहाया ग या ! िकसी को मौत की नीद सुलाया ग या! ये रोज़ की ही तो बात है !

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मौत उस अप ने की!

Toon of the Month

This has been made by my student who is intellectually challenged. She is 14 yr old and has the Serge Weber's syndrome. We were trying to put the photo of the child but unfortunately we didn't get her photo by this time. To know more about the child please contact [email protected]

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Photo of the Month - Shilpi

Photographer: Shilpi Project: Unnati, AID Gurgaon Description: One fine day we decided to do something different at school instead of doing regular studies. So what next?? Yoga!! Earlier at Mobile Creches we did kid Yoga, but in Unnati we named it as fun Yoga.. The children enjoyed so much and laughed so much that they forgot that they are doing some exercise along. The children also learned the advantages of doing various exercises.

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Photo of the Month - Sonia

Photographer: Soniya Project: AID Prayas Description: Photo name is beauty n d beast ... Priyanka is the small kid with Nikhil one of our Prayas volunteer .. I think both are inspiring each other for their hairstyle... Darshan Mehra

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Information Corner - Selva

Community Fellowship Youth Collective, a newly formed collective focusing on promoting involvement of young persons in social change. The Collective has announced Commutiny - a year long fellowship programme for young persons to pursue their passions for making a difference. We are looking for young people who have strong ideas and strong desires to create social change. The deadline for sending applications is December 7, 2007. You might have come across inspiring young people who could benefit from participating in Commutiny. If you feel that you could use your professional and personal networks to spread the word and encourage young people to apply, we would be most grateful. Details about the program and the application forms are attached for your information. The website www.commutiny.in contains further information about the programme. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate in contacting Te Youth Collective at [email protected]

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