AID Delhi newsletter April 2009
Content
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Association for India’s Development
Delhi Chapter Newsletter
March 2009
Table of Contents
Editorial
Dear Volunteers,
It’s again a pleasure to meet you all through our
yet another informative e-newsletter from an eventful
April. The mercury which is increasing has no effect on
our volunteers who are running the projects at the same
pace at what they were doing earlier. In fact they are
doing it better from time to time. I also take this
opportunity to salute their high spirits which keeps
them involved in all these activities despite heat. This
newsletter presents quick updates from the happenings
of the projects across Delhi.
There is an experience shared by a German
intern with our partnering association Khoj Foundation.
With summers on and colleges going off we are looking
for more interns who would do more productive work.
We also have an article from a young and new volunteer
who’ve shown concern for environment. With more
such people our environment cell would definitely go
places. With the celebration of Earth day and plans of
celebration of Environment Day at different corporate
during the World Environment Day, we are definitely
proving a point.
The newsletter also carries a poem by Shubham
in Hindi. It’s always good to see Shubham consistently
contributing for our newsletter. After a long time I’ve
also shared one of my article which focus on child
adoption. Hope AID Delhi volunteers would also come
forward to learn and spread the message about
adoption.
From the treasury side we neither are doing
good nor bad on our funds status. With RBS starting to
fund us through their payroll deduction our funds status
show a better growth but still the status of Meal a
Month is getting weaker with time. I’d request every
volunteer to pledge MaM and contribute towards the
same.
We are also spreading our reach to more people
by supporting projects at Bhalaswa Lok Shakti Manch
[its report is attached in the web version of the
newsletter] who are fighting for their rights with the
Government even after rehabilitation. Our association
with the GM Free India Coalition gets better as the I am
NO Lab Rat campaign takes its next phase. We are
Editorial 1
Project Updates
AID Aashayein 2
AID Gurgaon 2
AID Prayas 3
AID Jaagriti 4
Jamghat 4
Khoj 5
Parichay 5
Tara 6
Children’s Corner
¬ ¬¬ ¬r|ª| r|ª| r|ª| r|ª| – º|·| º|·| º|·| º|·| 7
Volunteer Speak – Alva Bonaker 8
Articles
Is Delhi is getting Greener? - Dhiraj 10
Child Adoption – Selva 10
Relief and Rehabilitation
– Report from BLSM 11
Feedback 11
Poem of the Month – Shubham 12
Contact us 12
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getting ready to a series of action at Delhi. We
are looking for a full timer for the campaign. Anyone
interested can please contact me for the same.
I also take the pleasure of all our new
volunteers and thank the one’s who’ve been there all
the time!. I promise you a pleasant volunteering
experience with AID. Hoping to hear more from you
in the coming edition of newsletters ☺.
Happy Reading to all!...
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
+91-9891358457
Project Updates: AID Aasahyein
There has not been any classes happening at
Aashayein in the last month and we don’t have any
updates from the project. Volunteers have come
together to define an objective to the project and would
be giving a new life from this May. We would come up
with updates the next month which would share the
objective of the project and the plan of action.
Contact Person: Prachi Aggarwal
([email protected])
Regular Volunteers: Sheetal, Sonam, Deboshree,
Anindita, Neeru
Timings: not yet finalized and interested people may
contact Prachi to get the same.
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
+91-9891358457
Project Updates: AID Gurgaon
• 2 children, Tara and Vinod admitted in DPS
Shiksha Kendra; 2 more students, Vikas and
Dolphy admitted in a private school near their
residence.
• Classes at Unnati and Disha streamlined to
have different batches for two hours each to
achieve the following objectives:
o No child in second row
o all children get adequate attention
o Senior and junior children called in
Children at Disha get to use the extra
benches at Unnati
• Electricity lines and submeter put in at Disha.
• Appraised the newly formed CSR cell of AT
Kearney of the activity of AID.
• The AID Gurgaon website updated to
incorporate latest happenings; hits increase.
• Increased website link presence on social
networking websites and messengers; links
posted on net to increase hits and increase
relevance in Google results; immediate spurt in
people being redirected to volunteers
Project Location: Gurgaon Sec 31, Jharsa Village
Regular Class timings: 10.00 hours – 13.30 hours
Regular volunteers: Anshul, Puneet, Rachit, Shankar,
Rashmi
New volunteers this month: Abhinav, Rohit
Contact Information:
Puneet – 9811621209
Anshul - 9873469546
Anshul Sachdev
+91-9873469546
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Raj is supported by Linkan & Rashi to take his
sessions. The sessions are planned for all Saturdays
from 3PM-6PM at the New Center. You can reach Raj
@ 09871826168, if you wish to join him.
Regular Classes:
Pioneer – Tuesday, Thrusday 20.30 hours – 22.30 hours
Eureka – Tuesday, Thrusday and Saturday 18.00 hours
to 20.00 hours.
Class – II – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – 20.30
hours to 22.30 hours and Saturday and Sunday 16.00
hours – 18.00 hours.
Regular Volunteers
Darshan, Kannan, Rajat, Anand, Rajiv, Sugandha,
Charu, Nikunj, Arun, Raj, Tarun, Priyanka, Vikas,
Poonam, Aakanksha, Sonia, Sonika
New Volunteers this month
Rashi, Anvita Shukla, Daisy Singh, Abhinav, Dilip
Project Blog
http://aidnoida.blogspot.com
Special mention
Abhinash (Full timer)
Contact:
Arun: 099109-08774
Rajiv: 098119-81809
Arun Raj
+98-9910908774
[email protected]
Project Updates: AID Prayas
April ’09 @ Prayas
Admissions at Nai Disha & Moonlight
As I was writing the updates of March ’09, it
was 12.30AM Midnight and our volunteers were going
of to sleep with slightly tensed about what would
happen the next morning for the admissions of the
children at Nai Disha. Today we proudly announce that
a total of 21 children got admitted at Nai Disha (Sec 29,
NOIDA) and another 5 at Moonlight Public School
(Sec 15A, NOIDA). That is, a total of 26 children
attend higher quality schools and now receive better
education than before.
The efforts of all our regular volunteers have
been a key ingredient to this success and every time I
get a chance to write about them I have a new
achievement from them to talk about. The volunteers
that made this happen are: Darshan, Vikas, Rajat, Rajiv,
Tarun, Nikunj, Charu, Anuradha, Sugandha, Selva,
Abinash, Anant, Anand (in no particular order of
relevance, but as a solid team).
Raj Starts Activity Sessions with the children
One of our veteran volunteers, Raj Bansal, has
come back to active volunteering in the past 3 months
and has been an active part of educational activities at
Prayas. He has started up an activity session on
Saturdays where the children are engaged in team
building and collaborative games, alertness building
sessions, science sessions, and a bit of silent meditation.
This has been well appreciated by the children and there
is a good attendance on all days for the same.
The most surprising thing I found was one day
when all 12 children present were in a sitting mediation
position and silent for almost 5-6minutes. This
experience, in my close to 3 year engagement with the
children of Prayas, was the most silent 5 minutes that I
had. And so, here is a marvelous effort by Raj at
managing this class and engaging the children in a
constructive way.
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Activity Updates
1. Jaagriti Volunteers have been successful in
getting 11 Children admitted in a nearby
primary government school. The project
teacher helped us out in the paper and
logistics work. Thanks to him. The school
was earlier not ready to take them as these
people are migrants. But after much
persuasion, we have been successful.
2. Classes are going on well at the project and
we have observed a lot of progress in the
learning habits of the children. The children
are keen to study and now their parents have
also come up themselves and are showing
great interest.
3. We had a small Volunteer meet in April and
many new Volunteers also visited the Project
and have shown interest in taking up skill
based classes over the weekends.
4. Pragati Education Society has also agreed
to take up children in their project for poor
children. Classes will be held from 2-4 pm, 6
days a week in their school premises and
children will be provided with all the school
infrastructure facilities etc.
Activities for next month:
1. Plan a skill based learning program where
each volunteer will take up a skill for a period
of 2 months and teach the children.
2. Monitor the progress of the children at
school and in classes.
3. Fund Collection Drives and a Volunteer meet.
4. Association with Pragati Education Society
for regular teaching of the children.
As there are more updates from Jamghat this
month we would be releasing Jamghat’s quarterly
newsletter which would provide the updates of the last
quarter. Please follow the web link in the html version
to download the newsletter of Jamghat. You can also
follow the link given below to get the same.
http://delhi.aidindia.org/bethechange/images/stories/
newsletter/jamghat%20newsletter.pdf
Project Location: Ladoo Sarai and Jamma Masjid
Class timings: All the days
Volunteers:
Suchita, Abhinav
Contact Information:
Amit Sinha - 9818705715
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
+91-9891358457
Project Updates: AID Jaagriti
Project Updates: Jamghat
Class Timings: 4 - 6:30 PM (Monday-Sunday)
Volunteers: Anchit, Abhishek, Anirban, Sahil,
Siddharth, Pritika, Anurag, Paulami, Sukriti, Richa.
Project blog: http://jaagriti-india.blogspot.com
Location: Near Sector-13 Metro Station
Anchit Goel
[email protected]
+91-9818115226
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1. Meva lal and Neetu have taken the charge in
teaching the children.
2. Children from R.K puram have gone back to
their village 15 days back so no classes are
carried out.
3. Immense increase in the regularity of children
from ber sarai.
4. Education trip to Adventure Island on 23rd
with 50 children.
5. Children celebrate poori choole at prabhat tara
during the Saturday sessions☺.
6. Increase in concentration and discipline of
children is observed during the last 1 month
sessions.
7. Now teaching sessions are conducted both at
IIT flyover and Ber Sarai.
8. School going children are more regular because
of the Auto facility.
9. We are searching for the Dance training institute
for Ganesh who is from bikaji camma place.
10. Khoj foundation's face book account was
created and project pictures and activities are
updated through it for more outreach.
11. Need volunteer to make annual report.
12. Teacher Meva Lal has worked with Salam Balak
trust for last 5 years.
Project Location: Ber Sarai and IIT Flyover
Class timings: 15.30 hours
Volunteers:
Shashank, Annie, Gouri, Amrit, Neetu, Abhinav, Ritesh,
Suneet, Kailash
Special Mention:
Alva a volunteer from Germany who was interning with
us for the past couple of months.
Contact Information:
Zubair- 9868486272
Pawan- 9810406998
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
+91-9891358457
Project Updates: Khoj Project Updates: Parichay
Project Highlights
1. A major activity at Parichay the previous
month comprised of purchase of books,
stationary, uniform, and several other things,
whose list would run into large paper sheets if
I were to mention them here. While it is a
pleasure to see that kids are getting into
higher classes, it takes a lot of time and efforts
to actually arrange for the different types of
pens, stationary and other paraphernalia. I
think, next time onward we would need a
volunteer who could take care of this activity
dedicatedly.
2. Kids visited Gyanodaya and interacted with
the new battalion there — overall a wonderful
experience.
3. Three interns from IGNOU visited Parichay.
They would be spending a total of 25 days.
They have started gaining an understanding of
the teaching aids and the different units of
Parichay. Later on, they could contribute by
exploring the local market for the marketing
of spices. These interns have positively lent
their contribution by raising awareness about
the project for the mentally challenged. The
interns approached the local school
authorities and informed them about the
project.
4. We will be putting up stalls at the offices of
Nokia and Ford.
5. The monthly sale @ STM was approximately
Rs. 9,100
Events planned in next month: Regular Stalls
Project Location: Tukhmirpur, Bhajanpura.
Regular Class timings: Any day and anytime
Active Volunteers: Selva, Prasad, Sahil, Akanksha
Purohit
Contact Information
Vijay Bhaiya – 9810753425
Puneeta - 9971500333
[email protected]
6
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Project Location:
Academy of Third World Studies,
Jamia Millia Islamia.
Regular Class timings:
Monday, Wednesday and Friday (2 to 4 pm)
Regular volunteers:
1. Kulsoom Rashid 2. Mithun Gomes 3.
Ameen
New volunteers this month:
None
Activity Updates:
Most of the children have moved out, gone back to
their villages or new cities with their parents.
Events planned in next month:
Looking for a new site or collaboration with another
organization.
Kulsoom Rashid
(President, TARA)
+91-9871551545
Project Updates : TARA
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Volunteer Speak – Alva Bonaker
Internship with KHOJ Foundation
I am Alva, a student (BA South Asia Studies)
from Germany. After studying one semester at the JNU
in Delhi (till Dec. 2008) I wanted to do something more
practical and therefore got into contact with KHOJ
Foundation where I started my internship in January. I
came to the teaching sites Bekaji, R. K. Puram and Ber
Serai every day where I supported Neetu in teaching the
children. Since KHOJ did not have any written account
about the background of the children my main task
during the internship was to create profiles about the
kids. I travelled to South India in February and
continued working with KHOJ in March till 14th of
April. Instead of Bikaji (where KHOJ arranged a
rickshaw which takes the children to school every
morning) we hold classes at IIT Gate flyover then.
9
Right from the beginning I liked working with KHOJ
and set my heart on the children. I saw street children
selling and begging at the rickshaw so many times
before and it always made me feel bad and helpless. So I
was really happy to get into personal contact with them,
share at least a short time with them and help them in
learning reading and writing Hindi as well as counting
and writing the numbers. It was amazing to see how
these small children handle their extremely difficult
situations on the street like grownups, how joyful they
play and laugh if the get the chance, how thankful they
are to learn something and how cleaver they are indeed.
Furthermore they have been really patient while talking
with me considering that my Hindi is very limited. The
language was certainly the biggest problem I faced and
to some degree it prevented me from interacting more
active with the children. The profiles can not be seen as
a complete analysis of all the children not only because
of the language difficulties, but also due to the fact that
the children come irregularly, some of them only very
rarely and a huge number of them is very young
(between the age of 1 and 5 years). Nevertheless I
developed a great interest for the background of the
children, their families and the extremely vital exchange
which they maintain between their villages and different
places in South Delhi. From the interviews and from
Zubair I got to now some very interesting stories about
their experiences and everyday life and a very broad idea
of mine is to collect more stories in order to write them
down.
Besides the teaching sessions I got the opportunity to
take part in KHOJ activities such as Saturday sessions at
Prabhat Tara, the AID India annual celebration in
January and the "Holi" festival which I enjoyed very
much. Through all these activities as well as in the office
and at home when I wrote small reports and developed
the broad outline and layout for the annual report I got
some insights into NGO activities, work and structure.
To sum up I have to say that I really enjoyed the time
with KHOJ. Even though it seems short in the review it
was a great experience and I am very thankful to all the
members of KHOJ and the children who made it an
unforgettable time for me which gave me some very
valuable new insights, impulses and perspectives.
Alva Bonaker
[email protected]
10
This question is running on my mind from last couple
of years, still unable to find answer of that. At one side I
am able to see reports from Delhi Government that
they have planted 1 lakh saplings in year 2008-09 and at
another side I can see river bed of Yamuna which has
lost its Glory.
Supreme Court has always ordered not to build any
infrastructure on river bed of Yamuna, but who listens?
If government is not following the law then from whom
you can expect?
I am a daily commuter to Noida from Azadpur. It was
blissful journey from outer ring road when I see lots of
green trees. But now I can lots of project working going
on like Signature Bridge, Common Wealth Games
Village work. I used to enjoy my journey more
whenever I cross Akshardham temple to Noida. The
trees on both sides gave me immense Joy and pleasure,
but now these area is also victim of Common Wealth
Game.
Is common wealth is more important than the life
of Delhites?
Is earning money is the only work we human have
to do?
Who are the Culprits?
Government, me or you.
Yes it’s all of us. We are running away from the truth
that we have consumed so rapidly that natural resources
are finally going to vanish and we are heading towards
hell. We all are responsible for climatic change, in-
danger mammals.
We are still repeating the same mistake, rather then
making things good we are making it worse.
Let’s join hands together and do something for
cause, cause not for someone else, but for us.
Dhiraj Acharya
[email protected]
Is Delhi is getting Greener? – Article by
Dhiraj Acharya
Child Adoption – Article by Selva
I’m not a father but still I have many children!...
sounds crazy. I mean, I play a mentoring role of a father
to some children whom I interact with☺. Lot of us do it
and everyone loves to do it. I don’t know if I’m right,
but the word Child has more energy than what e = mc
2
has, probably Einstein failed to observe this. If the word
child has much higher potential then imagine about the
word Children… They multiply. I’ve been observing it
for quite a long time at the projects which we do.
We all used to listen to stories when we were
young, and our ancestors use to tell us stories which
have angles in it and with all exclamations listen to
them. I always had a question that where these angles
come from and how do they look like and the answer
would be Angles are gifted by GOD but silly Selva still
asks a question Don’t they have Mom and Dad and the
reply would be yes their Mom and Dad both are
:GOD”. Sweet isn’t it. When I was in school I heard
about orphanage and children living there who didn’t
have Mom and Dad with them and I always fantasized
visiting there just was curious to relate how these angles
looked like, whether they have white cloths around
them with a feathery wings. Our comic writer’s
imagination is so poor which gets intruded into the
readers as well and we’ve always seen angels like that,
may it be in comic books or in movie stories.
During my college days I got a chance to visit an
orphanage [I used to call it as a temple as I feel angles
live there]. I don’t know if my childhood fantasies still
was in me or not but I swear I could see none other
than angels [both the male and female versions. No
gender discrimination: P] in front of my eyes. Why I call
them angels is because they don’t know who they are
and also don’t know who I am but only give a smile to
me and other all the time and say that we are in the
world to make others happy. I don’t know if the
institution taught them this but I know that children
speak from their heart and these are someone special.
I also explored about how many such
institutions in India exist and got to know there are
thousands. Then I also got to know that there is a
process by which one can adopt a child.
11
I was pretty impressed to know that there is a
chance of adoption. I say it’s a chance for us but if we
carefully read it, it’s a hope for the child a new world,
where the child can explore more about love and
affection for a father and mother. I decided there that I
would adopt a child in my life. I’m not a person who
gets emotional immediately, at the same time I’m not a
person who sees relationships as professional, it takes
time for me to get into emotional attachment with
anything and once I get attached then there is no
stopping and this is something I felt emotional very
immediately, but later I realized that after adoption I
should certainly tell the child about the history behind
him / her, so that I fairly give an opportunity to him /
her to choose his / her own life. I would like to play a
role of a mentor and that doesn’t mean that I would not
pour my fatherhood to the child. The definition of
adoption could differ and have any meaning for
individuals, but all it holds is a new ray of hope for the
children which would make a difference to not only the
child. So friends why don’t we all take the word forward
and encourage adoption in and around us.
After all we live in India where we adopt to live
with every thing which we don’t like and are not happy
with. [Should I quote example for this as well??, no
offence meant :D], but the child adoption does make us
happy!!!.. Let’s make a new world for us and for others.
We are running a group for promotion and
creating awareness among the public about adoption
and the group is called as Peoples Group for Child
Adoption in India. Once can join the google groups to
receive more knowledge and information about
adoption / adoption agencies etc from subscribing to
[email protected] . We also
launched our website recently and you can browse
through the same at www.pgcai.org . Nishank an AID
Volunteer started this movement and now its spread
across the country.
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
AID Delh is working with Bhalaswa Lok
Shakti Manch which is majorly run by women of the
community. They are people who were rehabilitated
eight years ago by Delhi government from the banks of
Yamuna. They are fighting for their basic rights for such
a long time and we’ve been able to help them by
organizing funding for the campaign from AID Austin.
Recently they shared their quarterly report which is
available in the pdf form from our html version
newsletter. The same could be downloaded from the
following link
http://delhi.aidindia.org/bethechange/images/stories/
newsletter/bhalaswa%20report%20-
%20dec%5C%27o8%20-%20feb%2009.pdf
For more details about the project write to
[email protected]
Selva Ganapathy
[email protected]
Releif and Rehabilitation
Feedback
Dear All! We’ve been ensuring a better version /
content of newsletter everytime. We would be happy to
know your feedback on the content we post and the
kind of articles we share. We would also appreciate if
you take time to write down your views and how you
prefer to read a newsletter so that we can improvise in
the coming times. If you are writing your feedback on a
particular project update section / articles / toons /
children’s section please do keep the author in cc. You
can share your feedbacks in the mail id given at contact
us session.
Selva Ganapathy,
On behalf of AID Delhi publications team.
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Shubham Jain
[email protected]
Feedback: [email protected] Web: http://delhi.aidindia.org Phone: +91-9818248459
Send your Cheques to
Selva Ganapathy.R
Department of Chemical Engineering,
Indian Institute of Technology,
Delhi - 110016
Hauz Khas
Phone: +91-9891358457, +91-9818248459
Publications Team - AID Delhi
Poem of the Month – Shubham Jain
