2018: Back to India!

Its that time of the year again, and 5 team members are meeting in Ahmedabad Feb 1 to begin our usual journey through Gujrat.  This year, we have more sponsors lined up than children, yay!  This means if we come across any families needing support, we will be able to accept them right away instead of looking for a sponsor.  

It is now taking us over 3 weeks to do a complete visit to the 150 ultra poor children we have placed in hostels and/or better English medium schools. 

All 7 of us travel in one car so that we can do our work in the car too, like make phone calls to arrange visits, document our meetings, etc...

These are locations we will be visiting, 
 Ahmedabaad, Sidhpur,  Bhavnagar Via Botad And Surindernagar,  Mahuwa, And Sleep In Diu And Sasan.  Maliya Hatina,  Porbardar Via Lots Of Villages Dhoraji,  Jetpur, Jamnagar Via Ishwariya, Kutch, Gandhidham, Bhuj, Mundra, Rajkot Via Bhujdi.

As usual, any donation would be most appreciated and goes a long way in India.

A few team members are in India - Gujarat at the moment in the "trenches".  They have gruelling hours and challenging conditions to try and meet up with all the ultra poor families we support. Here's an overview and update of our team effort:

A group of volunteers under the leadership of Razia Nathani Suleman has been engaged with our Gujarat Community for 12 years.  Gujarat has a huge Ismaili presence.  There are numerous pockets of Ultra Poor Jamats, both in urban areas such as Ahmadabaad, Porbandar, Jamnagar, etc.  and rural areas such as Maliya Hatina, Bhuj, Keshod, etc.

After collaborating with the local institutions, we have been providing various types of assistance and support with the sole objective of improving the quality of life of these families. We have identified families whose children are in desperate need of education and direction, which in the long run, will Inshallah, alleviate not only poverty but illiteracy as well. Our team handles these funds personally and 100% of the donations are spent on providing support in various ways to ultra poor families in Gujarat.

To date, we have been involved with over 125 families and about 100 young students are enrolled in good hostels and most of them in English medium schools. We have numerous success stories if you wish to read these or want more info, please do let us know.

Our work has been made possible by very many generous donors both from within and outside the community. We have incorporated checks and balances in our system both in Canada and in Gujarat which enables our work to be accountable and transparent.  We invite all and any enquiries regarding our work, and will be more than happy to sit down with you to share our humble successes and of course our many challenges.  One such challenge is that team members have to take time out from work and come up with their own expenses to travel to and stay in India for about a month, year after year.  

Here they are talking to community service volunteers in Bhavnagar.  

We are so proud of the 15 girls we have sent to Sidhpur Hostel with the help of donors who sponsor a child or two or three...

 I have not gone this year and with the help of other team members, am sending the newsletters out as fast as they can get the info to us to process.  Getting quite a few enquiries to help us, so here's the Pay Pal link that used to be here before, thank you for all your support and encouragement towards this cause.  As we are really small, we cannot provide any tax receipts/benefits, sorry:

paypal.me/NHassam

Our team will be travelling once again to do our annual humanitarian work in India.  We have now improved the life and education situations of over 100 ultra poor children.  The families have a glow in their faces every time they come to meet us.  This year, it will take us about a month to do the sewa as we have added newer centres.  We are also keeping children in their homes and instead of sending them to hostels, we are placing them in much better English medium schools in their own towns.  6 of us will be travelling from Canada and two local workers will join us on "Our Journey" in Feb 2016.  

2015 update

Two members of our team will be doing the work this year joined by a new couple.  We managed to raise enough funds to get housing for two families - yay!  Lots of one time donations have poured in and as usual, our sponsors have been very supportive by sponsoring each child - $600 for the year which includes everything.  After four trips, I am unable to join my team this year ;-(

Will help them to do whatever I can while they go all over the map, beginning with Ahmedabaad, then to Porbander as their base and then into Kutch/Mundra.  Hopefully the newsletters will be sent and I will share some excerpts here.  

Began with Ahmedabad

Our whole team is back in India, together we raised about $4500 which is a record!   We have just visited all our families that we help with welfare funds and now we will do the rest of the route, Porbandar, Maliya Hatina and Kutch/Bhuj.  This year, we visited Sidhpur Girls Hostel for the first time and will also visit Hyderabad for the first time, so will keep you posted.  Thanks once again for all of you encouraging and supporting us to continue with this cause.  

Another Year's Journey Over

Our team departed end of November with me taking over $2000 in donations which went a long way in Gujarat.  The highlight was seeing all the familiar faces once more eagerly waiting for us.  In Ahmdedabaad we took on three new welfare families.  One of them was a young boy who had just become blind.  He said he wants to become a musician when he grows up, so we found a donor who is paying for his instrument and a music tutor.  In the Maliya Hatina hostel we celebrated with over 200 children with a feast and dancing in the outdoors at night.

After visiting the Bhuj Girl's hostel, I stayed for a few days in Mundra and visited the boy's hostel.  We funded a hot water "geeser" tank for them and three new computers.  Overall, as usual it was an amazingly fulfilling experience having been to India for over two months in total.  We have now begun fundraiser dinners in Vancouver which was very successful and another one in Calgary. 

This is the girl I have sponsored a few years later from the picture on the top right:

 

Leaving on the 25th of November once again!

Can't believe I am doing this for the 3rd time now.  So far, $1500 has been pledged/collected and growing.  Lots of community members have asked me to remind them for their donation.  A total of 5 of us women will be going on this trip.  We are sightseeing thru Rajeshthan first before beginning the humanitarian work in Ahmedabaad as usual.

Will end up in the Navjivan naturopathic health farm at the end of our work thru the slums - looking forward to that for sure.  The slums noooo, I have to be really strong and not break down in tears every time I see how they live and especially when they have young children.  We hear a lot of the welfare families are just waiting for our arrival....if you have any ideas on fundraising, the more I can raise, the more families can be helped by us personally.

All 100% of the funds go to the families, we come up with our own expenses to go to India and during our stay there.

 Hoping to continue my work as an online teacher while also dealing with a new country, new technology and jet lag and time change, etc...

 OK OK among all the good things such as getting to drive a tractor in the middle of the health farm where I was learning to lose weight...

and ride a camel all over a beautiful beach in Mundra...







or better yet, fresh coconut water instead of surviving on the cans from Costco out here...

That's it for now...stay tuned for further adventures in the 2012 trip, I have a feeling it's going to be a good one...