The founder of Dana group, Dr Bee visited New Delhi, India in 2016. The scene of streets filled with beggars and barefooted children with worn out clothes, left a seed in her heart. She came home to Malaysia with a purpose. She first needed to try and understand the cause of homelessness and poverty amongst them before she was able to contribute to them in her own tiny way. She hopes to be able to support these people, who appear invisible to the general public. Hence, Dana’s Charity Trip (2018) to New Delhi was planned and accomplished successfully.
This mission was made successful because of Rishabh, our friend who resides in New Delhi. He took leave from work to facilitate and assist in our mission. One can imagine his determination when you consider that he actually lives 3 hours away from our accommodation by bus.
In the limited time in New Delhi, we visited 3 NGO’s (Ashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA), Smile Foundation, Uday Foundation), 2 slums, 4 shelters for the homelessness and participated in night rescue as well. On our last day, we distributed food to the women and children sleeping rough on the streets.
Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA）
AAA was one of the NGO’s which we visited. Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan originated as a citizens’ campaign to fight for the rights of the homeless people in India and make the State accountable towards their rights. It subsequently evolved into it’s current state as a non-profit organisation. According to Mr. Sanjay Kumar (co-founder of AAA), since it’s inception in the year 2000, there has been multiple collaborations with the government, such as receiving monetary aid, construction of shelters, assisting city migrants ( more details below) in obtaining photo ID/ banking cards, cooperation between police and hospitals, assisting the homeless elderly, psychiatric patients, women and children.
Upon arrival at AAA’s office, there was several friendly workers who were busy with their work. Dr Bee found out later that some of them were volunteers while others have received the kindness of AAA while they were a child and are now employed by AAA to continue their good work. Mr Sanjay’s office walls were filled with news clippings of the organizations’ community activities and their contribution to the homeless society.
City migrants were the main cause New Delhi faces a crisis in homelessness. These people have migrated from the countryside in the hopes of a better future in the city. Regretfully, many were unable to find work and hence have no way to pay for accommodation. Without a job they were unable to open a bank account nor obtain their citizenship entitlement / ID. Without an ID, they were deprived of their basic rights as a citizen. Sanjay describes their situation to be similar to a wandering spirit. They lacked an identity when born and they die nameless. Hence, apart from providing shelter and facilitating access to medical care, AAA dedicates its’ resources to obtaining an ID for these nameless citizens.
The annual government handouts to AAA were insufficient to cover the running costs of the organization. Most of the operating expenditure was covered thanks to the generosity of the public, other NGOs’ and some individual donors. ( Thus I have decided to donate some of our funds to assist AAA)
It was our pleasure to have interviewed Sanjay for 3 whole hours. We talked about poverty afflicting New Delhi, government policies, change initiated by AAA, his challenges leading AAA, AAA’s goals, funding and expenditure. In the midst of our conversation, we could feel his strong passion for his current work. Sanjay clearly outlined his overall plans, current concerns and also showed us what 18 years of toiling has led to.
Children of the Slums
We headed to the slums to visit the children after our interview with Sanjay. It was our first time taking a public bus in India which took us 2 hours to reach our destination. As we walked into narrow alleys strewn with rubbish, our nostrils greeted by the pungent odour of faeces and urine, we were both apprehensive yet excited to witness if the slums were as depicted in the movies. Soon enough, the entrance appeared before us. Rusty steel gates with matching fences surrounded a ruin with multiple tents sticking up from the ground haphazardly. The multitude of bicycle trishaws parked around should be the main source of income for the breadwinners. Not a spot of ground of was left uncovered with rubbish and the air was permeated with the stench from the trash that you could almost taste it. It was almost certain that the homeless will be relegated to rag picking.
We were ushered into the only cement building which happens to be the AAA activity centre. We were greeted by the sight of more than 10 children seated on the floor behind their small desks. They appeared shy and looked at us awkwardly. The teacher enthusiastically introduced himself and informed us that he has worked here voluntarily for many years. The children aged between 3 to 12 and were all attending the class together. For some of these children, this was the only source of formal teaching as they were economically disadvantaged.
After a brief introduction, we began interacting with the children. Despite being shy initially, we eventually overcame our language barrier and had fun. Some children were practicing penmanship, some were reciting ABC’s, and some were even able to correctly identify and pronounce the items on the English flashcards despite their inability to communicate in English. Their teacher took this opportunity to tell them a little about geography and Malaysia. Perhaps it was the lack of materialism in them that brought out a touch of purity and innocence amongst them. Their mismatched clothing, stained shirts and hand-me-downs did nothing to dampen their sincere smiles. The lack of writing instruments or paper did nothing to dampen their thirst for knowledge. They surprised us at how quickly they learnt the few English songs with the accompanying movements.
We proceeded to another shelter afterwards. This shelter functioned as an activity centre for the underprivileged during the day, volunteer teachers head to the centre in the late afternoon to offer guidance in the children’s studies. As the children were informed of our arrival, they presented themselves to us in their best attire. To gain a deeper understanding of AAA, we interviewed a few of the older children. Some of these children have actually slept rough on the streets before AAA found them. In essence, they were fairly optimistic about their future and thankful that AAA had changed their life. After the interview, the children were excited to show off their talents. The most impressive of the lot was the demonstration of yoga by a young yogi. As we bade them goodbye, the children were reluctant for us to leave and held on to our hands tightly.
Night Rescue
Intrigued by the mention of a Night Rescue activity on AAA’s website, I boldly asked Mr Sanjay for permission to participate. We first visited 2 male night shelters. ( We were pleasantly surprised that not only was there gender segregation in order to protect the privacy and modesty of the ladies, the ladies shelter was actually even better furnished). Night shelters were mainly for the male city migrants to sleep at night. During the day, these men leave the shelter for work. They returned at night to these shelters to rest, eat and shower and thus do not need to sleep on the streets. The shelters were clean with tiled floors lined with straw mats.
These homeless folks were free to choose whichever shelter they wished to use for the night, all that was required is to register their details at the shelter of their choice. There was a whiteboard on the wall of each shelter which displays the number of residents for the night, furnishings in the shelter and also what they lacked.
In each shelter, there was an Operations Room which was manned 24hours a day. They mobilized immediately when they received information from the public about the homeless requiring help. Coincidentally, the team received vital information while we were waiting in the Operations Room and they were acted upon immediately. As we arrived at the given location, we were advised to stay calm and observe from the side-lines less the intended homeless be intimidated. Approximately 50metres from where our van parked, we noticed 2 weather beaten gentleman with extremely worn out shirts, squatting under the street lights. In a short span of time, the experienced rescuers convinced these gentlemen to ride in their van and brought them to the closest shelter.
After getting them settled in, we proceeded to visit the ladies shelter.The ladies shelter was managed differently from the male shelter. The women essentially live here until they gain independence. The shelter was fenced and locked to keep them safe which was extremely considerate. The shelter was also equipped with a modern kitchen so that the ladies might polished their culinary skills. They were also provided with bunks to sleep on as opposed to straw mats for the males. The ladies here were of varied age groups and there were even mothers with their daughters. The shelter felt like one huge family.
After gaining a deeper understanding of AAA and an in-depth discussion with friends of the Dana group, we have donated a total sum of INR25,000 to AAA on the premise that these will be used largely for the women and children’s shelter. We have also donated the children’s clothes that were brought over to be distributed to the shelters under AAA which need them.
Smile foundation
Smiles foundation differs from AAA as they did not own shelter, but they built schools in 950 slums of all 25 states of India. They endeavour to provide education, instilled hygienic practices in the children, living skills and empowered females. Since establishment, they had more than 600,000 beneficiaries.
When we arrived in New Delhi, the staff at Smile Foundation informed us that the children were lacking writing instruments and hoped that we would be able to contribute. This was what we have been hoping for as we were of the mind to purchase from India what the children needed. We would thus be able to kill 2 birds with one stone by ensuring that the children receive the intended donations and boosted the local economy at the same time.
We decided to donate 100 sets of colour pencils, water colours and geometry box sets.The children gave us radiant smiles as soon as they sighted us. After icebreaking, the children started voluntarily demonstrating their talent which included song and dance. The waves of laughter being emitted from the compound attracted quite a few children outside the fence to peek through to catch a glimpse of what’s happening inside. Unable to hold our curiosity, we asked a volunteer and was informed that only a portion of the children in the slums were sent to them for schooling as the remainder of the families believe that education was useless. Those children who remained outside the fence belong to the latter, and they refused education even though it was free. The volunteer mentioned that apart from monetary challenges, convincing those adults with archaic thinking was an even bigger task.
In another section of a building were young ladies who gathered to learn sewing and computer. We were pleasantly surprised when they conversed with us in English. It was evident that despite a poor economic background, education could increase one’s self esteem and creating career opportunities.
On our last day in New Delhi, we decided to head to the streets. We purchased titbits along from street vendors, dry rations and fruits as we wanted to distribute it to the women and children on the streets. They usually congregate close to temples and markets. We have to admit that this activity was a little challenging. Firstly, we did not purchase enough food (we should have hired a car). Secondly, we were concerned that we would be mobbed. Fortunately, under the leadership of Rishabh, we managed to safely distributed all our food.
Despite knowing that our assistance was a drop in the ocean, we were still happy knowing that we had provided some sustenance for the day. As we were making our way through the crowd, we realised that there were other generous citizens who were distributing food to these homeless folks as well. The husband was riding his motorcycle whereas his wife, the pillion rider, was distributing home cooked food packed in containers to the homeless children. They were quick to distribute the food to the intended children and left quickly before the rest of the crowd arrived. Their generosity was really admirable. It went to show that the world wasn’t entirely gloomy as there were individuals who spread warmth and love.
We left India with no regrets, knowing that we had ensured the donations to Dana group had been given to the relevant NGO’s and children.