By the time I left Vancouver, I had collected over $3000 and was it ever needed! Below are excerpts from the newsletters sent to our donors/supporters/well wishers:
Week one began with our 25 or so welfare families who don't get any help from the govt, rather my community's Council tries to look after them but they are spread much too thin out here:
Newsletter 1:
Dear All,
One more journey begins with few more volunteers working with me. Nusri, Nazira and Asu. More help is a HELP.
When we arrived in the morning , we spent day organizing as our first meeting started at 4:00p pm.
This year Council had given us their Hall. All the families I sponsor were there. Change I saw in them was, life was hard, things are expensive and more and more asked for death as survival is difficult. Specially old people as onions , sugar and basic grocery is way too expensive.
We had started with 300 rs ($9), increased to 500 ($11) and last year it was 700 rs ($18). It looks like we will have to increase this to 1200 rs ($28).
There are some remote success stories too, but few and far apart. It took us almost 4hrs. to talk to all. Some desperate cases we had to give money there and then.
First visit was at a home of a widow 75 yrs old who has a son 45 yrs old. Both his legs are paralyzed from down. He crawls and thus has developed sores on his bottom and now he will be hospitalized. They will do some skin grafting and will get 3 to5 yrs life. Their home is falling apart and rain has damaged their place. Chairman wants me to work with him to repair her place.
Second experience was indeed very sad. A home with kitchen not touched for a while as the lady of the house was lying in the bed since last five days. Room was tiny with a bed and a stool. Neighbour had brought some rice for her which looked like sitting there since morning. She had a surgery of her heart valve and there was no one to look after her.
Our gang came back to Karimabad area to visit Attar Apt. Our case of Roshan ben whose house got burned about six months back and she also suffered from a broken hand. Daughter looked after her for a while and son in law did not want her. She came back to Ahmedabaad and Council got her an apt. when we visited her, she was sleeping on a mat on the floor with hardly anything to cover. We made sure we got her all the furniture and paid her rent too. we have added her to our welfare list.
Newsletter 2:
Dear All,
Our two hour journey to Maliya Hatina Hostel turned into a horrendous 4 hour roller coaster ride as the roads were totally washed away by heavy rains in the previous months. The highlight of our visit was to witness the pouring of the second story slab in the new girls boarding building. It will house 100 girls once its built, one quarter of it is built.
We visited the school and our children, took photos and had meetings. Nusri will be providing professional development to the teachers, they were quite excited and are looking forward to us visiting on the 30th of November. On that day we will also be doing a study of 12 new welfare families in Maliya.
It was very sad to see many of the roofs leaking as the rain continues to pound Gujarat. Earthquake has left a lot of damage to these buildings.
As some of the dormitories are really soggy and damp, they are joining beds and lots of children are sleeping with 3 on one bed.
Although the return journey was not as bad, it still took us until midnight to get back.
Input from others:
Nazira: What a heart breaking experience to see how the people live in such poverty. The worst was the old lady with the son whose legs were paralyzed. I have decided to sponsor this family and thus I will help to begin and monitor the Welfare Families Sponsor Program.
Ashraph: This was the worst experience of my life, never having seen something like this before. I wish I could help them more.
Nusri: Even though it is my second time here, it wasn't any easier to see our own brothers and sisters in such hardship. Razia's success stories such as meeting the widow who began her own snack business and no longer needs our help is inspiring us to continue. Also, the new girls boarding wing at Maliya being built gives us hope to continue with this work and do even more. While maintaining the Children's Sponsor Program, I will help Nazira to begin the Welfare Families Sponsor Program so that more such families can be helped especially in Ahmedabaad where their situation is utterly desolate.
Newsletter #3:
While we were in Porbunder we visited Ranavav for 2 potential cases. We ended up going further into Bhaud. One thing we noticed is that most of the girls whose husbands died young or were divorced, they ended up back to their parents house with their young kids serving brother's family. These are the women who are ready to give their children to us. All they get is the worst room in the house and become house maids and babysitters of the brothers kids.
As mentioned in newsletter 2, we once again visited Maliya Hatina and this time we found a better road than last time. The teachers were very happy and all of them gave most of their afternoon for the professional development session by Nusri. I had a meeting with the teachers and all the hostel staff, it was a pleasure meeting them all.
We also began our research project (mafatia apartments) for Barkat (another Canadian gentleman who does building projects out here). To our surprise we found some real needy families, many with stinky buffaloes in the paddocks and tons of cow dung around as they were mostly farmers. Lots of homes had sick people and mentally challenged people, one joint-family had 3 mentally challenged brothers and a blind mother. Their 15 year old sister was a victim of poverty as she had to stay home and look after them all. This is the family that is begging us to build a washroom as it is difficult to take the brothers to the existing washroom which is far away and has stairs.
From there we left for Amrapuri as we had to visit an ultra poor family Dolani. Father used to sell vegetables until he was 60% blind until 6 months ago when he became totally blind. There was hardly anything in their house to eat so they had to send away their 14 year old girl to live with their neighbors so that she could get a bed and a proper meal. Mother goes out whole day to do any kind of labour work she gets. They were also in debt as they were sending 3 of their children to the Maliya Hostel. We helped them and have sponsored one of their children, the other two are being sponsored by others.
Newsletter 4:
Dear All,
We left for Kutch via Rajkot, the parents at the Bhuj hostel were waiting for us to meet them. We met a family in Kera on our way, I have been sponsoring his brother Akbarbhai, blindness runs in the family. They had been standing on the road waiting for us for a while. His brother is also blind now. Him and his wife took us to their borrowed house. He was literally begging for help. We joined him in our welfare program of 1000 Rupees per month which is about $25 per month.
We proceeded to Bhuj hostel to meet with our 25 girls. Karishma and Sonal needed a pair of shoes, and other such issues. One of the medical issues was a young 14 year old had a lump in her breast. Right now she is under medical attention.
Next morning we were at Mundra boys hostel, this hostel has always been needing things. 3 years back kids were running away and found at the bus stop. At that time I decided things needed to be improved, especially their environment. The washrooms were repaired, the building was painted, the study room was renovated, the kitchen was re-done, mosquito screens were replaced. All the beddings and beds were also re-done.
Last year, after visiting all the boys, they requested for a ceiling fan and refrigerator and cubby holes. All the requests were granted. This year we visited all the boys again, the only thing we need to improve as they are now getting fruit twice a week which is better than none the previous years. We still need to improve their menu which I will be looking at once I get back. Their printer was broken so we bought a new one. the boys asked for a ping pong table. I happened to ask the member what is their TV time as the other hostels have 1-2 hrs on the weekends. He said its been a while the TV is broken, we will have to find a donor to get a TV for them, it will cost about $400. They also said since the cubby holes are open, some "friendly creatures" are getting in. So now it will cost about $1500 to have cupboards built for them. As we were leaving, one of the boys wanted to ask for one more thing. He hesitated as they had asked for enough things, I came back and asked the boy and it was a cricket bat worth $10 which we promptly agreed to.
The saddest case was us interviewing a 9 year old boy who had just lost his mother. After 24 hours of the funeral, father never woke up from his sleep, he died of shock. Thus kids lost both parents within 48 hours, there are 3 other sisters. We will be taking care of the boy and 2 sisters in Bhuj. The older 17 year old, chose to look after them at their uncle's house.
This brings us to the end of our journey in Kutch/Bhuj.
Razia Nathani Suleman
President & CEO
Bayshore Inn and Waterton Glacier Suites
end of newsletters
Three of us volunteers and two more local women all checked into Navjiwan a naturopathic health centre to recover from our past heart wrenching weeks. We are really being taken care of in terms of treatments to detoxify and getting a healthy diet everyday. Will try to post some pics asap. Thanks once again to all those who have encouraged me on this journey, Nusri.
