ANNUAL REPORT (2005-2006)
SRI RAM GOBURDHUN CHARITABLE TRUST
Director's Message
After the trials and tribulations of a year marked by dark unexpected obstacles and problems, we began a new journey. The beginning of the year was heralded with a series of awards and recognition. Citizen One, Bravely medals and Rotary Plaques: Enough to make anyone swoon. I did to, for a bit and thought that doors would open, and my one rupee dream finally happen! How far from the truth was I, actually it was an eye opener and a double whammy. After a few days of unsolicited limelight that became a tad embarrassing, I realised that no help was forthcoming and those who had so conveniently eulogised you, had done so to meet their own agendas. The others, who had held your hands in hard times suddenly, felt you had 'arrived' and hence did not need their help anymore. For me it was an eye opener, one I had been warned about but not heeded. So after returning to earth we set about carrying on our work. Good news arrived in the shape of a once again 100% results. The one lot that never let us down was undoubtedly our bacchas! This was also a year of the heart in a different way. Four heart surgeries were sponsored and we even christened our programme has heartFix Hotel! The greatest ally we had during this year was the Net as many new netizens became whyCitizens and new friends appeared from the world over. It did make up a little fro the lack of support we got from our own city. New funding ideas took shape: short story competitions, on-line raffles and community raffles but the one rupee dream was still elusive, though we knew it was just around the corner. A marriage in the family ended with a huge party for the children setting a precedent that made its mark: the community saw that one did as one preached as my elder daughter got married for less than the cost of one outfit in a page 3 wedding! And the year was also marked by Bollywood support as Akshay Kumar became part of our planet. At Xmas time our friends from Enfances Indiennes gave us a gift we could not imagine in our wildest dream: the possibility of having our own building. So the search became in a city where a square inch costs the price of gold and we found a quaint little house in a quaint street so the end of the year saw us preparing to move. Now we wait with bated breath for year seven of our existence
Anouradha Goburdhun Bakshi
New Delhi, May 2008
OVERVIEW
The Sri Ram Goburdhun Charitable Trust using the name Project Why? is a non-governmental not-for-profit organisation engaged in education support and life-skills enhancement. The projects current focus is primarily on the slum and basti children of South Delhi. ProjectWhy began as a spontaneous reaction to help an unfortunate few, and has grown organically over eight years to become an extraordinary life-line that offers many children hope instead of despondency.
The initial few were kids born into the slums of South Delhi, but they were the unluckiest of the unlucky; born with special needs into a place where even able children stand little chance. ProjectWhy created both classes and teachers from resources in the slums and they quickly became full. So more had to be done, more money found, more teachers trained, more class-rooms formed from the rubble. Today ProjectWhy teaches 600 kids, provides employment to more than 30 local staff.
More than this, Project Why comes to the aid of the communities desperate cases, those that have nowhere to go, and those who are in despair. This is Project Why's spirit: to do what it can where it's most wanted no matter what the circumstance.
Project Why's reach is limited by expenditure, which of course is limited by income. It reactively spends what it receives and there has never been the possibility of a period of consolidation and saving – there are always desperate cases here. Hence this year saw the setting up of two new centres: a women and child centre in Manadpur Khader and foster care centre.
Project Why is a hand to mouth type of organisation; desperation connects the income received from donors with the investment in its resources.
RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES
The year saw our education programme continue in what has by now become a well-set model. Our children once again performed extremely well, and our programme remained dynamic and flexible, something that we feel is in great part the reason of the success of our work.
We recovered from our tryst with the labour court a little truncated and a little subdued.
Our sustainability efforts had to be reviewed and we limited ourselves to finding novel ways of fund raising keeping in mind our main objective: that to slowly shit the donor base to within the community.
THE APPROACH
For all our education programme our approach remained the same: a judicious combination of education and life skill activities. Somewhat we also rediscovered the sagacity of a Gandhian view of life, where obstacles are circumvented, and alternate small solutions found. This was important in a year where we saw ourselves shunted from one place to the other. Had we not maintained a singleness of purpose we would have been lost.
After an extremely nomadic time, we settled in the flat we got on rent, much needed relief for all.
During this financial year we had the following education programmes:
1 early education at Tilak Khand (90 children)
1 early education at Sudhar camp (20 children)
4 primary extension at Tilak Khand, Sudhar camp, Okhla and Lohar Basti (150 children)
1 day care for children with special needs (20 children)
1 secondary programme (150 children)
1 computer centre
Our other activities included:
5 open-heart surgeries
2 other surgerieW
Nutrition for people with special needs (pregnant and lactating mothers, post operative cases)
DETAILED ACTIVITIES
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
Overall Situation – infrastructure
Our main activities were contained to one flat in Tilak Khand where the special section and the early education programme were housed, as well as one primary section.
To replace the Janta Jeevan camp we lost, we cleaned up a garbage dumping ground next to the railway line in Okhla Phase I and began a primary extension. This was a challenge as most of the children were not only out of school but often used by small time mafia to steal or push drugs. It is a matter of pride that the section took off well and had over 100 students at the end of March 06. We began a small primary section and a crèche in nearby Sudhar in September 2005 camp.
In later December our friends from Enfances Indiennes managed to convince the Foundation Leila Fodil to divert some left over tsunami finds to buy us a little space f or our children with special needs and our toddlers. A tiny 3-storey building was found in Govindpuri and we are in the process of shifting.
Overall situation -staff
fter the bitter lesson of the past year, we had a relatively quiet period with no major staff problem barring one in the computer centre. Our staff strength gravitated around 30.
Overall situation - content
As usual most of the time was spent on finishing curriculum and preparing for the far too numerous examinations that exist in the present education system. We however tried to include civic responsibility and problem solving into our programme of study. A few awareness programmes on water and AIDS were launched and we hope to make this an ongoing activity. We are more and more convinced of the fact that change will have to emanate from below, from an attitude change and not from laws emanating from the top. We also realised the importance of reaching children their role as citizens!
Curriculum Support
Driven by the dual objective of containing and arresting school drop out rates and enhancing performance, our main stress was one more on our curriculum support programme. As in the past, the programme was flexible and adapted to the specific needs of the students.
Primary school intervention
After all the upheavals and problems of the past year, we slowly rebuilt our student strength in our new locations. We are happy that we met with a good measure of success. However it is a still an uphill task, particularly to make parents understand that education is a commitment and a partnership. We ran extensions in the following places: Giri Nagar, Lohar Camp, Okhla and Sudhar camp.
Secondary school intervention
Our consistent results increased the number of students and we built an extra room on top of the secondary section in Giri Nagar. Our teachers took extra classes enabling us to take students of the science and commerce streams.
Once again we had a 100% result.
Lohar Intervention Program
The Lohar intervention programme s had its ups and downs with the need of constantly having to push parents to send their children to school. Isabelle one of our dynamic volunteers managed to motivate the children as she used interesting and novel teaching ways. Paint the school project was also undertaken.
Early intervention programme
Our early intervention programme has been a great success with new children replacing the 15 who got promoted to primary school. We had a good number of volunteers who taught the children many new activities. This section is particularly important as toddlers are still not part of the free education programme and do not get pre-school learning.
Intervention for children with special needs
Here again we have achieved great success. Our programme aimed at making these children as independent as possible is showing promising results. This year also saw a more organized approach to our vocational activities.
We laid emphasis on vocational activities such as cooking, beauty skills and stitching.
Children were taken for many outings by two French volunteers Sandrine and Françoise and could see Qutab Minar, go to a movie (Harry potter) and visit Delhi hath and the zoo.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Life skills and problem solving
Like skills is according to us an intrinsic part of any self respecting education intervention programme. The events that prevailed this year showed us how important it is to stress on such activities. Often short sightedness and lack of the ability to weigh a situation can land one in trouble. We also began civics as a subject, where the emphasis was on defining duties and the role of the citizen. Issues like water, environment and right to information were touched upon.
Cyber WHY
This section was in some trouble as it was shifted to three locations and saw a change of teacher to. We finally found a solution both for staff with one new teacher and one physically challenged ex student. Internet was finally installed and we also began hardware classes. However the CyberWHY, which to our minds should have brought in more students as we offered a sound programme at reduced rate did not quite meet with the success we had anticipated. This matter needs to be looked into.
Nutrition
From Mai 2005 Timma Lamba sponsored a nutrition programme for the early education children and we provide nutrition in cases where we feel it was required: under nourished children, pregnant women, surgery cases. etc... Though nutrition is an important matter, the increased number of children has made it an expensive proposition and ad hoc programme does not make sense. Hence this year Arun, Babli, and Nutan all open heart surgery patients were given extra nutrition as was Nanhe who underwent multiple stone surgeries
Recreational activities
Slum children are rarely taken out. However outings are expensive and they are only possible with the help of friends.
The Giri Nagar primary section had a special treat when Timma Lamba took them for a day excursion to the Taj Mahal.
Isabelle took her Lohar kids to Akshardham temple and the special section went to the movies, the zoo, Qutab Minar and they favourite Delhi hath
CRISIS INTERVENTION
This past year a few the emergency situations were dealt with.
Open-heart surgeries
Arun (14) and Babli (7) underwent successful open-heart surgeries for their congenital problems.
Nandini was found to be too old and got an angiography and lifetime medication.
Other medical intervention:
Our very special Nanhe was operated upon for bladder stones and for his legs and Poonam underwent gall bladder stone removal surgery.
NETWORKING
This year again it was our endeavour to try and extend our interaction with other organisations.
Youthreach and Pravah sent us volunteers.
Student exchange programme with the French School and the American School was a great success.
SUSTAINABILITY
Firm in our belief that our one rupee a day programme would one day met with success, we pitched it as a festival time option and had a good response from young Indian students and NRIs in the US and UK. Two dynamic young supporters held an on line raffle and one staunch supporter from the UK held a short story contest. Though the money collected may not have seemed large, tremendous enthusiasm was generated and new friends made. We also held two community raffles where gifts were donated. Including a TV by Soni Mirchandani and Bollywood star Akshay Kumar had tea with our winner!
WEB PRESENCE
The greatest achievement of the year was our increased web presence both as a well visited website and a blog that now has a group of supporters. The blog enables one to share the everyday realities of our work and thus became a great diary of the trials and tribulations of working in an urban slum. Our blog and site are updated as regularly as possible. A photo gallery is also present so that people can get a feel of the project.
FUNDING
This year saw us losing many friends who had been our staunch supporters. Enfances Indiennes of course was ever present and held our hand each time we were in need. Fondation Leila Fodil gave us a grant for purchasing a building. Akshay Kumar sponsored a heart surgery and we got an annual grant from NDTV after a lapse of three years! Sabrina and Chris two friends from Germany raised funds for us at Xmas time And we received generous donations from: trees for life, Enfances Indiennes, Leila Fodil Fondation, goodnewsindia foundation, indusnet.ind, regency park india, chemical construction, journey mart, ID home furnishing, Private Majorca Consulting... !
One-rupee-a-day
Awards and recognition
This was a year of awards and recognition.
Anuradha Bakshi was selected as Delhi's Citizen One by Today Newspaper on April 29 2005
On the same day she also received the red and white silver medal for social bravery and was given the Distinguished Service Award by the Rotary Club of Delhi Midtown on May 20th 2005.
Though it was a great moment for the staff and children of project why, awards such as these seem to have a double whammy as people tend to think that you are no more in need of help!
GUEST and VISITORS
We had a number of visitors this year and many became friends of project WHY and great supporters:
Delhi network
Foreign Service Wife's Association
Deepak Chopra
Thura Ko
Sabrina and Chris
Lilian Alleaume
VOLUNTEERS
Many volunteers came to help project WHY this year:
Sandrine, Francoise, Anita, Angelique, Dominisque, pierette, Sophie, Etienne,Amit, Timma, Nidha, Swati, Mukesh, Ravikant and many others
PRESS BOOK
This year project Why was featured in:
Today newspaper
Good housekeeping
Outlook India
India today
And we were featured on the folowing shows:
Jaanbaaz Star News
Channel 7 morning show
Radio bleue in France
To all who helped, and stood by us we would like to say: "Thank You "
If you want to know more about project why visit
http://projectwhy.org
http://projectwhy.blogspot.com
Contact us at: C 15 Chiragh Enclave, New delhi 110048
(Field office) 251A/3 Govindpuri, Kalkaji, New delhi 110019
Phone: 91 9811424877 and 91 9999079705
Email: anouradha.bakshi@gmail.com