Dear Friends,

I feel privileged, honored and extremely delighted to be here, talking to you. Jessie very kindly contacted me and exposed me to this wonderful initiative you know as the Wandering Educators. In the field of social welfare, the biggest asset one has is the goodwill of generous people, friendship of loving and caring persons.  With this new partnership with the Wandering Educators, I look forward to expanding our horizons and building new relationships.  I will look forward to your feedback regarding our work with street children and rural women of India…

Vatsalya was started in 2000 with an objective to give a good life to underprivileged children, especially those who are orphaned and/or abandoned.  The organization has evolved gradually with its vision and mission to reach out to as many of them as possible.  As of today, we have the following programs for the children:

•    Udayan; Vatsalya's Residential Care Program for Orphaned & abandoned children
•    Medhaavi; Vatsalya’s Scholastic support program for talented children
•    Samvedna; Vatsalya's  Health care program for street children
•    Upaarjan; Vatsalya's Vocational Training Program for children
•    Parivaar; Vatsalya’s Repatriation and Foster Care program
•    Jagriti; Vatsalya’s awareness generation program for street children

We also work closely with truckers of India who remain at high risk of contracting STIs and HIV/AIDS. Some of our significant work is in improving the health conditions for poor rural communities of India. Please visit our website www.vatsalya.org to learn more about us.   

We started Anoothi in 2006.  Working with the street children we realised that many of them could be easily saved the trauma of being abandoned or working as child laborers if their mothers were empowered. The patriarchal system though enables a woman to live a comfortable and stress free life generally; it also disables them in many ways. They don’t have a way to survive or support their children if things go wrong.   We organized poor rural women in Self Help Groups and based on principles of micro credit and micro enterprise, initiated a journey of economic empowerment for them. These women are now trained in making jewellery of semi precious stones and silver; home products from recycled old Indian traditional fabric, office products with Lac (ceiling wax obtained from trees) and items of hand made paper.  50% profit generated from these products goes to Udayan; Vatsalya’s rehabilitation of orphans program and the rest of the 50% go to the women of Anoothi. This 50% presently is in the form of a free health care package for them and reinvestment in Anoothi as a business.  We need to make Anoothi viable enough to run on its own capital. To know more about Anoothi, its products and its women, please visit www.anoothi.org

I will be back next month with some recent events both in Vatsalya as well as Anoothi. Please feel free to ask questions if you have any…

With warm regards
Jaimala
Voices from India!

Jaimala is the Voices from India Editor for Wandering Educators