ANNUAL REPORT (2006-2007)
SRI RAM GOBURDHUN CHARITABLE TRUST
Click Here for Financial Report(PDF)
Director's Message
The year began with our shifting into our new premises in Govindpuri. Our new building was a gift from friends and well-wishers and somehow validated the fact that project why was here to stay.
The beginning of this year was spent in organising ourselves and redeploying our resources in the best manner possible. I must admit that our efficient team achieved this task with great ease. We were now in 6 different locations and spreading our wings. The children soon settled down and school year began in earnest. The year went by without problems and once again we were rewarded with 100% success.
The year saw us also taking up issues which, in our opinion form an integral part of any comprehensive education effort. Awareness on environment related issues and civic responsibility were the two areas we worked in.
But as always project why is not just about the larger issues, but is dotted with human stories that give our work its true spirit. This was the year that saw that the crashing and rebuilding of little Utpal's life. He lost his home, his security but came out a winner as his mom checked into a rehab programme and he is now in a boarding school validating the view that no situation is hopeless, a view reinforced by the four little children who had their heart surgery this year.
2006 also brought us a surprise as we Asha Seattle decided that to support part of our activities. This was a major achievement as we have always held that our community steered model is one that is doable.
But 2006 also had its share of problems and battles. However these too were a reflection of our success as agents of change. Once again local slumlords instigated a staff member to take us to court. We held our ground and with the help of a young lawyer we decided to call the bluff once for all. The matter was settles amicably.
Anouradha Goburdhun Bakshi
New Delhi, May 2008
The Sri Ram Goburdhun Charitable Trust runs an education programme by the name of Project Why. At present it is its only programme.
OVERVIEW AND RATIONALE
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. 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 create a donor base within the community.
THE APPROACH
For our entire education programme our approach remained the same: a judicious combination of education and life skill activities. Required course corrections were made as and when needed without disturbing the on-going work.
This year saw us settle our most fragile groups – early education and special section – in our own premises
During this financial year we had the following education programmes:
1 early education at Govindpuri (80 children)
1 early education at Manav Kalyan camp (20 children)
4 primary extensions at Sanjay Colony, Govindpuri, Okhla and Madanpur Khader (150 children)
1 day care for children with special needs (20 children)
1 secondary programme (150 children)
1 computer centre
1 community outreach and awareness programme
Our other activities included:
3 open-heart surgeries
2 other surgerieW
Nutrition for people with special needs (pregnant and lactating mothers, post operative cases)
Several awareness workshops
DETAILED ACTIVITIES
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES
As we moved into our on premises at 251/A gali no 3 Govindpuri, many changes had to be made.
The special section and the crèche are now located in these premises.
One primary centre continued in Tilak khand.
Our Okhla and Lohar Basti primary centres remained unchanged and we opened a new centre in an overcrowded cam p near gali no 13 Govindpuri.
A new crèche was also opened in Manav Kalyan camp.
The secondary section remained in Giri Nagar, as did the computer centre.
The junior secondary had to be shifted from our own jhuggi, as its toilet became a quasi-public one and made classes there impossible to run. Hence the junior secondary has been temporarily shifted The solution is to rebuild the jhuggi but lack of funds and the recent sealing laws made this impossible. We hope to be able to do it this year.
Overall situation -staff
Our staff strength remained around 30.
Some left and were replaced by two ex-students who had passed their XII.
We had to terminate the services of one staff because of unprofessional behaviour. As usual our detractors were quick to jump in the fray and drag the issue to the labour court but the problem was finally settled amicably.
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 felt the need to add on environment programmes as well as introduce the children to civic responsibilities.
Mainstreaming children
This year we were successful in getting over 40 children admitted to regular schools. This is in keeping with the main objective of our organisation.
Curriculum Support
Driven by the dual objective of containing and arresting school drop out rates and enhancing performance, our main stress was once 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
This year our primary programmes ran well, and once again all our children passed their school examinations.
We ran extensions in the following places:
Giri Nagar, Lohar Camp, Okhla and Nehru camp.
Secondary school intervention
Our consistent results increased the number of students and we decided to separate the secondary into two sections (class VI to VIII and class IX to XII). 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 had its ups and downs with the need of constantly having to push parents to send their children to school. We fear for the camp has it faces demolition in the near future. A PIL is in the High Court and we hope that an alternative will be found for the camp.
Early intervention programme
Our early intervention programme has been a great success with new children replacing the 27 who got promoted to primary school. 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.
Jan Madhyam volunteers came regularly to work with the children and initiate new activities.
Our teachers attended several workshops.
A physiotherapist visited the centre regularly.
Children went on an outing to Delhi Hath and Jan Madhyam's Aya Nagar project.
OTHER ACTIVITIES
Life skills and problem solving
Like skills is according to us an intrinsic part of any self respecting education intervention programme.
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.
2 meetings on RTI were taken in collaboration with Parivartan.
A workshop on global warming was also held.
Cyber WHY
Our computer programme ran smoothly. Internet and hardware classes continued with success.
We installed an inverter as electricity cuts were frequent and impaired proper functioning.
However our hope of having this section generate funds for us has not materialised.
This is a matter that needs to be looked into further.
Nutrition
This year the nutrition programme covered only special cases:
Madhu and Asha who were pregnant.
Nanhe who had two major surgeries
Monty and Sapna, as they were extremely neglected by their family.
Moreover some of the children in the special section are given regular lunches as their families do not give it to them
Recreational activities
Slum children are rarely taken out. However outings are expensive and they are only possible with the help of friends..
This year Akshay Kumar sponsored a viewing of his movie Bhagam Bhag as a new year treat for all the kids.
The secondary section visited the Red Fort and from this year onwards a monthly outing is envisaged on rotational basis.
CRISIS INTERVENTION
This past year a few the emergency situations were dealt with.Open-heart surgeries
Deepak (1), Anil (1), Anisha (1), underwent successful open-heart surgeries for their congenital problems.
Sandhya (11) was operated upon but did not make it.
Jhunnu had to be sent to a rehab programme and Utpal was enrolled in a boarding school.
Other surgeries
Our very special Nanhe was operated upon for his kidney stones, Sapna's mom had a much needed hysterectomy
WHISTLE BLOWING
Project why donned a new mantle: that of whistle blowers.
Our most rewarding moment was the release of the orphan girls abused by their caretaker in the Ghaziabad Swami case.
We also helped catch a government school principal accepting a bribe on camera and in an undercover programme on toilets in municipal schools.
NETWORKING
This year again it was our endeavour to try and extend our interaction with other organisations.
Pravah sent us volunteers.
Student exchange programme with the French School
Two RTI workshops with Parivartan
Regular interaction with Jan Madhyam
SUSTAINABILITY
The sustainability programme took a back seat this year. One of the reasons was the new sealing law, which put a stop on activities such as printing..
We need to rethink this area as it is of great importance for the future of the organisation.
PLANET WHY
The idea of Planet Why was seeded when one came across the Ninos Hotel in Cusco: a guest house for travellers the profits of which help sustain development activities in the area.The paucity of safe and low budget accommodation in Delhi and our need for a residential centre for the children we know have no future made us veer towards this idea. Much brainstorming convinced us of its viability and the idea was shared extensively.
Moreover the new trend worldwide of Tourism with a Heart or Volontourism made us confident of our ability to fill a small 10 room guest hosue.The main problem was to find land that would be suitable for a guesthouse. We located an area close to the airport but were well aware of the prohibitive costs of land in Delhi.
In January 2008 a potential donor came our way and promised us an interest free loan for the required 80 lacs to purchase the land. He let us believe that he would also be able to help us raise the building funds.This infused us with the much needed hope and will to take on the project. Though the donor later retracted, we had paid an advance and were in a do or die situation.
We managed to get some time from the seller and are in the process of garnering the missing amounts. We are confident that we will be able to meet our April 20th deadline
WEB PRESENCE
The greatest achievement of the year was once again 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. It now has many regular readers.
Our blog and site are updated as regularly as possible and have been linked by many other sites.
A photo gallery is also present so that people can get a feel of the project.
A new blog was launched in roman Hindi and is written by members of the team and was named: why ky tazaa khabar!
FUNDING
A visit by Kannan Iyer from Asha Seattle in May 2006 was a huge success and resulted in Asha Seattle funding about 50% of our activities!
Enfances Indiennes is of course ever present as usual.
NDTV gave us our yearly grant of rs 3 lacs
We received a one-time grant from the Foreign Service Spouse Association!
Akshay Kumar sponsored 4 heart surgeries
Sabrina and Chris two friends from Germany raised funds for us at Xmas time
Isabelle and friends organised a music show in France for Project Why
We also received generous donations from:
Asha Seattle, chemical construction company, enfances Indiennes, Leila Fodil, chopra foundation goodnewsIndia, Delhi network, chemical construction company, EASA, Nidhyana Associates Consulting, Japanese women's association, Satish Gupta
One rupee a day
The following friends participated in our rupee a day programme:
Vijay Kiran kaliravapu, Jean Ellis, Ian Jones, Phil and Wendy Young, Bev Hart, E. Jono, R Velayutham Subbia, vel Dhingaravel, swarup biswas, effi jono velayutham Subbia, malavika srivastava,June and David Hart, Jane Rawle, Dawn Williams, Pat Evans, Paula Mann, Judy Taylor, Kathy Esherwood,Keith Graham, Gary Nicholls, Alan Kiteley. tulsi keshkamath,anjan, timma, gayathri raghavendra, deepak mittal, vijay kalivarapu, navjeet singh, vimala soderqvist, sumeet bahl, balaji mulakrishnan, vivek gupta, tulsi keshkamat,lopamudra sharma, ai wooi pee, swaminathan rajgopalan, swarup biswas , srinath and deepti,seshadhari anantharaman, shankar krishnamurthi, sandra webb, rakshanda malik, subhash nanda, gopal bhatt, mangesh basarkar allan lewis, jai krishnan, komal bajaj, K. shankarnarayanan, mayan upadhyaya, mangesh basarkar,priya ramdas, sunil nimmala, gopal bhat, rekha das, sashank shekhar, vibhu pratap, bharath raghavan, swarna prashad,phang tiong men, vijay karan kalivarapu, nick ngaw, effi jono, tiong huat lim, chun sing tang, jerene tan, nacy bohrer tulsi keshkamat, amrit, ashwini dhune, sumeet bahl, sreeja raj, shyna a.b, rakesh bedi, kavitaa kapoor, asif sheikh, mukta , pawan, puneet, anurag, sudeb, rahul, vikas Lise Lentignac, Komal Bajaj, tim and isabelle gore, ravina swnhney, ashita gulathu, anurag varshney, sudeb mandal, rahul singh, preeti mohan, vikas gera, mallavika, dinesh mirpuri, anuja kedai, sabiran and chris, indu lakhani, anita muthia, dharmaraj mungoore, menaka raman, ashwini dhume, karthik srinivasan, vibhu pratap, amar kapadia, suresh sangaiah, arunkumar radhakrishnan, badri seshadhari, harish bharadwaj, deepa vardarajan, M.D.Vel, Bhavani D. Vel Lakshmi Lavanya, Mahimai Raj, Ravi Subramanian, M.S.Sundaravel, Preethi Natarajan, Raha Akhavan, Sindhuja Sundaravel, hariprasad kannan, nagesh srinivasgopal, niren joshi, thiagarajan ramaswamy, kartik ramadoss, shivani chadha, sophie amumonier, jatin porecha, lakhsmi sneha duvedi, prabhat kumar, jai kishan amundan dhingaravel, srinath meenakshi sundaramk., vellayutham subbia suganthi balasubramaniam, shashank shekhar prashant mudgal, ks jsrotia, rajesh vijayarghavan, adarsh seetaraman, menaka ramanbalram suman, naveen murali manok subaram, sanjeev mehra,pratok jhanb, arun kumar manickam malavika srivastava, vikram samvedi, sairam vijayan, indira rangarajan, ranjit kumar gupta, sarvamangala andre fernandes, huzefa mamoola, vishal kadam, abhijit pachegaonkar, sonal onkar, sangeta malhotra, meena mehta, shivani khuller, sunande, mandira nayar, sudhir nayar, sabyasach, murlidhar, gauri shanker, zafarullah, simran kaur, ram chandra, rohit singh, naina singh, hasan, binay, hari rajan ahsrafullah, sadain kumar, babu kumar, victor kumar, haroon kumar, madhu kumar, shashi kumar, ravinder singh, dilip kumar, shashi bhushan
GUEST and VISITORS
We had a number of visitors this year and many became friends of project WHY and great supporters:
Mrs and Mrs Joly ( Leila Fodil )
Japanese Women's Association
Claude et Gregoire
Vitry Satish Gupta
Mallika Chopra
Rita Chopra
Meenu Nageshwaran
Katy Faure (delhi Accueil)
Mansi Bhatnagar
Shiraz Vira
Monica Ananad
Deepak Bhojwani (Hands Up holidays)
Ana and Phillip Grenfell
Kannan Iyer
Heather Dawson Francoise Chipaux
VOLUNTEERS
Many volunteers came to help project WHY this year:
Cosntance, Veronique, Ingallil, Shruti, Timma, Isabelle, Amit, Swantatra, Romuald, Manuel, Simon...
Monica Anand a young and dynamic High Court Lawyer has accepted to represent us pro-bono!
PRESS
In August 2006 Kim Wong Hoh an eminent journalist from The Strait Times Singapore visited project why.
We were featured in his column: Asian heroes!
Francoise Chipaux mentioned our views in her article on the state of slum dwellers in Delhi in Le Monde.
The Lok Sabha channel did a feature on Project Why in their programme hoslon ki udan!
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
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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