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News Guardian, Thursday, November 11, 2010
Slumdogs they might be, millionaires they certainly aren’t – but youngsters living in poverty in India The Rotary Club of Monkseaton Centenary sends thousands of pounds to India each year to support good causes. Our reporter TEGAN CHAPMAN has been over there to see how that cash is spent. Here is the last of her reports.
A young girl fetching water from a well in Vijayawada. Right, youngsters at Girl.
IT is a sight that is hard to comprehend from the comfort of our homes, but for these children living in squalid conditions with no real roofs over their heads and surrounded by filth, this is all they know. Vijayawada is home to more than a million people, the majority of whom live in sprawling slums totally lacking in safe drinking water and basic sanitation. The Indian government says the number of people living in its country’s slums has more than doubled in the past two decades and now exceeds the entire population of Britain. Many slum dwellers live under a tarpaulin sheet, sharing their space with street dogs and rats. A lucky few live in thatched huts. More than 3,000 girls are regularly sleeping in the slums of Vijayawada. Many are escaping physical, mental or sexual abuse, while others have been abandoned by their parents because of problems such as poverty, alcoholism or HIV infection. Once on the streets these vulnerable girls, some as young as five, are often forced into child labour or prostitution. Despite the abject poverty that blights this country and the awful conditions that many of its people live in, as I walk through the slums the faces I see do not reflect that hardship. Their smiles tell a different story. They seem happy with the hand
Misery of life in slums can’t wipe smiles off faces
that life has dealt them, and many children crowd around, asking to have their photographs taken. It is impossible not to be affected by the human suffering and the thousands of malnourished children who live in these slums, but there is hope for some of the young girls living there. When I arrive at the Girls’ Institute for Rehabilitation and Learning (Girl), dozens of smiling faces are waiting to greet me. Set up in 2007 by Tynemouth woman Wynne Clift and Radhika Pemmaraju, Girl provides 25 young girls aged five to 12 with food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and basic education. Ten-year-old Monika was picked up from the slums by Radhika after she was abused by her neighbours and beaten by her mentally ill mother. After running
away from her family, she had no choice but to beg and rag-pick to scrape together enough money to be able to feed herself. Eight-year-old Shanti lost both her parents to polio and would have had to turn to begging or prostitution to get her next meal if Girl hadn’t taken her in. The centre helps keep young girls like Monika and Shanti out of the slums, but without donations it simply wouldn’t survive. “These girls would have no future if they stayed in the slums. They would be rag-pickers or would be prostitutes. They wouldn’t stand a chance,” said centre manager Radhika. “We only have the funds to take 25
girls, but we want to help so many more. “These girls are so young, so innocent. We want them to have a childhood, to enjoy being young. “Here we can provide them with an education, with uniforms, with a safe place to stay.” These are things we all take for granted in the UK, but in India these are luxuries not everyone has access to. The girls at the centre are the lucky ones. They sing, they dance and, more importantly, they play. They have skipping ropes and footballs. Here they can be children. They can be eight-year-old Shanti who is good at two languages, Tegulu and English, not eight-year-old Shanti the orphan rag-picker. Here they can get the childhood that they deserve. “These girls’ parents can’t afford to care for their children, so they can’t get an education and they can’t get proper healthcare,” said Radhika. “Here we can provide them with
News Guardian, Thursday, November 11, 2010
www.newsguardian.co.uk
are being offered a helping hand by generous North Tynesiders what they need to enjoy their childhood. “We rely on donations to keep going, to make sure these girls don’t have to go back to the slums. “If I had my way, I would help every girl to get out of the slums and to give them a chance.” Wynne Clift has cut her commitment to Girl in Vijayawada to concentrate on her project in the Himalayas in northern India, but the Rotary Club of Monkseaton Centenary stepped in as its official sponsor in 2007. Money raised by people in North Tyneside has enabled the club to cover the cost of educating all the girls at the centre, including school uniforms and materials. This Christmas, the club is launching an ‘adopt-an-orphan’ programme allowing well-wishers to sponsor a street orphan from Vijayawada for a contribution of £5 per month. People in the borough have already helped these 25 young girls enjoy their childhood, but each extra £5 a month will allow Girl to take in one more child, so more young girls like Monika and Shanti can get a better start at life. n If you have been touched by the stories you have read, and would like to make a donation to help more people like Monika and Shanti, here’s how you can do it. Donations can be made online at www.justgiving.com/monkseatoncentenerary/Donate, or by post to: Tracey Hartley, Rotary Club of Monkseaton Centenary, 75 Marine Avenue, Whitley Bay, NE26 1NB, or in person at the Monkseaton Arms in Front Street, Monkseaton. Cheques should be made payable to the Rotary Club of Monkseaton Centenary Trust Fund.
Giving the gift of sight
Tegan Chapman with some of the children looked after at the Girls’ Institute for Rehabilitation and Learning, a centre set up to rescue youngsters from the slums of Vijayawada, below.
MONEY donated by North Tynesiders is helping to provide the gift of sight in India. Cash raised by the Rotary Club of Monkseaton Centenary is helping pay for specialist equipment at the LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad. The institute is a world-class eye hospital, research and training centre founded in 1986 by ophthalmologist Dr Gullapalli Rao. Its six main objectives are to provide comprehensive patient care, clinical research, sight enhancement and rehabilitation, community eye health, education, and product development. Money donated by people in North Tyneside is given by the club through the Rotarians’ ophthalmoscope initiative. That initiative provides the hospital with special lightweight, robust and portable ophthalmoscopes that can be used with minimal training. The equipment supplied offers an effective, non-invasive technique to examine the retina, helping in the early identification of serious medical conditions such as diabetes, as well as eye disorders. Visit www.lvpei.org for more information about the centre.
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