Rajani
her grandfather is head of a clan!
She is 10 and is a gadiya lohar. her grandfather is even the head of his clan!
Rajani is a lovely child but she is also a different one.
No one in her clan really understood why she did not walk till she was three or never really learnt to talk like others at her age.
Her mother left her with her grandparents, and there she grew amidst abundant love. There was no one to tell her grandparents that she needed special care and intervention.
he grew terribly spoilt , everyone ready to give in to her whims and fancies.
And Rajani grew cared for by her loving grandparents.
When we first met her, she was a smiling child, but terribly shy and scared of strangers.
Rajani did not know how to look after herself, was not toilet trained and had no social or
life skills.
It took us a long time and lot of patient counselling to convince her grandparents to send Rajani to projectWHY.
We had to explain to them that rajani would have to live independently one day and that she had to learn basic skills.
Rajani now comes to the centre, and though it took her a long time to adapt to the new environment, but she did slowly and now enjoys coming to school.
She likes to listen to song and love to dance. She has now learnt to play with toys, and is learning colour and number concepts.
Rajani has a long way to go, but we hope to help her learn what is needed to get by in life!
but that was not destiny had in store for her, Rajani passed away gently in November 2006
sapna
a little dream come true
She is four, has delayed milestones, as she cannot walk or talk.
She came to us about two months ago.
Listening to her story left us all stunned beyond words.
Sapna's father does not work. He is supposedly unwell, but spends his time gambling and abusing his wife.
Sapna's grandmother has a small tea stall, and Sapna's mom, Bimla, spends her day washing the dirty utensils.
At the end of the day, she gets some food, not always enough to feed Sapna and her small brother, let alone herself!
We soon discovered that much of Sapna's delayed milestones were due to malnutrition and neglect.
Sapna joined the early education programme, and with the help of Gaelle, our physio-therapist volunteer, she has slowly started catching up.
It would have been nice if the story ended here but it was not to be so.
The horror story was yet to unfold...
Hesitantly, one day Bimla told us that she had a prolapsed uterus following the loss of her third child and we were stunned to discover that she had been *living* like this for many months, and carrying on all activities, however strenuous.
All of us were too shocked in the face of such callous behavior from her family.
We immediately took her to a hospital, and were hoping that all would be settled but more awaited.
She had a bad heart condition and could not be operated upon.
One could have just given up, but for us at projectWHY, her life meant the life of her two children who had no one else to love them.
Bimla has been admitted to hospital and will undergo heart surgery in the next few days.
She will also have her gynaecological problem attended to and we hope come out of the ordeal for the sake of her two beautiful and innocent babies.
Miracles do happen on planetWHY.
Is one in the making? ..
shambhu
hates vegetables..
He is 10 and studies in class IV.
Shambhu lives in Giri Nagar with his father who is a house painter, his mother who is a housewife, and little brother Akash who is 5 and has just joined school.
They both study in the local municipal school.
Shambhu is a good student and a lovely little fellow with his dreams, his hopes, his likes, his dislikes and many of the things boys are made off.
His favourite subject is English, though he likes science and, believe it or not, Sanskrit!
He loves mangoes and burfies, but hates all vegetables, particularly karelas.
He loves football and also likes cricket. His favorite stars are Salman Khan and Aishwarya Rai.
At projectWhy, he loves his teacher Vinita Didi and Pradeep, the new English Sir.
Shambhu is like many other young boys who live in urban slums, and almost unknowingly aspire for a better future.
Shambhu w
ants to be a computer engineer!
But within the present education scenario, it will be a long, difficult and almost impossible dream.
To aspire to an engineering college, Shambhu will have to do exceedingly well in his class XII, sit for a competitive examination, and maybe have to pay hefty fees.
Most of all he will have to compete with his privileged peer who have access to books, computers, tuitions and a conducive learning environment.
Shambhu will have to do this almost alone, in a cramped room, with little help. Yet we believe in Shambu's dream, and in the dreams of many others just like him.
At projectWHY we try to give Shambhu the support he ne
eds to cross every hurdle that lies between
him and his dreams..
Will we succeed?
Shambhu certainly hopes so...
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