Rianna's Fund: 2009

Thursday 24 December 2009

Christmas Celebrations

Another early start for us yesterday to visit another of the football projects being supported by Rianna’s Fund. This one was in an area of Chennai called Egmore and we arrived there at 0630 to see the boys training. They have some really good players in this group including Balak who has been selected to play for the county.

We were told that this slum community had been given eviction

notices and their “homes”were due to be levelled to make way for a new freeway. The government do move them to alternative housing but it is a long way outside the City and there are few opportunities to get work in these areas. Consequently some families gravitate back to the City and become pavement dwellers but can at least access work as day labourers. The community had been on standby for about 3 weeks and the trucks actually arrived to move them about an hour after we left. Thankfully some of the football coaches and representatives of our local partners were still there and were able to say goodbye to the children and families but the boys were very upset that they would no longer be part of this amazing programme.

We visited two of the after school programmes later in the morning. The children had actually finished school until 4^th January, but when they found out that visitors were coming many came in especially to meet us. We heard more about the support these clubs give them with their school work and the fun they have participating in art and crafts. Most of these clubs run in partnership with local Churches and are Church volunteers.

In SM Nagar the programme has been responsible for getting 35 children back in to school and we met Lakshman who was one of these children Lakshman (see picture) is now shining as a real star in his school and obtained top scores in his recent exams. He has also received a gold award from an art competition run by the local city council. He was very proud to show us his books and artwork.

After a few hours to freshen up we headed off to Annai Fathima Children’s Home for our Christmas celebration. We first visited this home for 160 orphans about a year ago and saw what a dreadful condition it was in. In particular the sewage pipes need repairing as they leak, and the land needs levelling as currently stagnant water sits around for many months creating real issues with the children’s health. We have been working since then to get local contractors to offer quotes and advise on the best way to tackle the problems and we hope that work will start early in the New Year. This will also include a rain water collection system to feed water in to their well which is currently dry for many months of the year.

As in many countries across the world, the big Christmas celebration here is on Christmas Eve. We had asked told Annai Fathima about our visit and asked what we could arrange for the children. Their big wish was to have a special Christmas meal including meat.

We had arranged for Chicken Biryani to prepared for them and then special celebration cakes. This was funded by the money raised by St Giles School at the Worldwide Charities Fair in Ashtead and we also delivered some Christmas messages and pictures of the children at St Giles.

The children of Annai Fathima put on a superb Cultural Show for us with fantastic dancing and we led them in singing Jingle Bells which is one Christmas carol which had broken through the language barrier. It was an amazing evening and even included a visit from their own little Father Christmas delivering a sweet for each child. Handing out the dishes of Chicken Biryani to the children was a very emotional experience, they were so thrilled to receive this Christmas gift and even the smallest of them ate everything given to them. We joined them cross legged and eating with our hands which caused a lot of tittering, I think probably because of the mess we made.

I cannot think of a more perfect way to celebrate Christmas!

Wednesday 23 December 2009

We're now in Chennai

We left Mumbai as the newspapers were reporting more drastic moves relating to the water shortage there. A lady was arrested after she had accessed the water mains to siphon off water to sell it and the local council are voting on Thursday whether they should cut off the water supply on one day in every seven.

We arrived in Chennai yesterday, formerly Madras. This buzzing City is on the East coast of South India, one of the many areas hit by the Tsunami. Today was a very long day. My son Luke arrived this morning landing at 0400 and after we met him Terry and I headed off to visit one of the morning football training camps that Rianna’s Fund is now supporting as part of the Sports Project in Chennai.

Football training is the carrot to get slum children back in to school. If parents allow children to attend school rather than working or begging, then they often drop out as they cannot keep up with the homework in slum homes without lighting. Depending on the time of year training starts at either 0530 or 0600 and the dedication is amazing, children walk miles to get to a rough piece of ground and then leave at 0715 to head back to school. The football training builds confidence and self esteem and the after school clubs run as part of this project ensures they keep up with homework and receive tuition in life skills.

We arrived at training in Vyasarpadi at 0630 and were amazed at how serious all the boys were. We met the three newest recruits, Naveen 9, Maurai 12 and Arunkumar 10 who had been coming for over a month now and were all back in school and attending the after school clubs run in this area. They told us how much they love coming and their favourite football player was Ronaldo. Rianna's Fund support has allowed them to include a morning snack of a banana and a bun for the children which is really important for these children.

Another great thing about this project is that the boys in the senior team now give their time voluntarily to help the younger children. Natraj pictured here is one of those young men, he is now 19 and in College but comes along each morning to help with the training.

We headed back to the hotel for breakfast before heading off to meetings with our project partners and then ended up visiting the after school club in Vyasarpadi.

Children here told us how the teachers helped them with homework and to catch up with any subjects they were struggling with. They also enjoy Fun Time here, time to just be children and take place in activities which they would not normally experience – art, crafts, story telling and games. Two hours in Chennai rush hour traffic delivered us back to our hotel.

I feel a bit of a fraud when we turn up to receive thanks for supporting children when it is really the many Rianna’s Fund supporters who make this a reality.

Another early start tomorrow as we visit another of the Sports Projects in a different area of Chennai. We thought we’d have a night off Curry but are rather disappointed that the club sandwich is rather bland!

Sunday 20 December 2009

Dharavi - the largest slum in Asia

A few months ago I was given an article about a company in Mumbai called ‘Reality Tours’ who operate a tour of the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai with the goal of dispelling some of the negative perceptions about the people who live there. We had visited a small area of the slum before with NGO’s but this showed us a completely different side of things and certainly opened our eyes to the reality of living and working in these conditions.

Dharavi Slum is the largest slum in Asia with 1.1 million people living in .67 square miles. Our guide was Abi who was brought up here and well known by many people. There was a lot of staring from the residents and we had to get used to the intense heat (and this is winter!), the acrid smells and swarms of flies but this was a fascinating tour.

We have seen ‘rag pickers’ all over Mumbai, usually women or children who sift through the rubbish heaps to collect paper, plastic, cans, etc. which they sell on to be recycled. In Dhavari Slum we found the next stage in this amazing recycling chain. All of these things have a value to people who have nothing and amongst the extremely narrow alleyways we found businesses built around turning these items back in to raw materials to be sold back to industries. Plastics broken down, dried on the corrugated iron roofs , melted down and then extruded and chopped in to small pellets. Cooking oil cans are heated to remove any logos and images and then beaten back to shape and polished to be re-used. Aluminium cans are melted down and blocks of the metal created. The estimated turnover of Dharavi slum is around £350 million a year.

PICTURES ACROSS THE ROOFS OF DHARAVI SLUM : Plastic being broken down and dried before being melted to sell on. Freshly died fabric being dried before being taken down to the workshop below to make in to garments.

Men, women and children are engaged in back breaking work to earn enough to do nothing more than provide food for their families and pay rent to the slum landlords. At the end of the day many have to sweep the floors where they work to give space to sleep. As we coughed our way through the stench from the fires where they melt the aluminium and plastics, and wiped our streaming eyes walking through the thick smoke from the make-shift kiln baking clay pots, there was very little conversation from our small group.

Ideas that slum dwellers sit around all day begging, drinking and sniffing glue were immediately dispelled. There is no doubt the working conditions were horrific, and we were told that workers earn about 120 Rupees per day (about £1.50) for a 10 – 12 hour day. We found Muslim workers building Hindu shrines and heard how, following racial riots here and about 1,000 deaths in the 1990’s, all faiths now celebrate and work together. We found make-shift Churches, Mosques and Hindu shrines amongst the plastic, concrete and sheet metal. A group of boisterous boys in high spirits accidently knocked in to me and a few minutes later two men caught up with us to offer apologise on behalf of the community. I have been in situations before where I have felt humbled, but as I tried to imagine how these people get up each day I was numb with humility. Offering the children a way out of this lifestyle is all about education and the opportunities are few.

If you ever visit Mumbai this is an absolute must.

Saturday 19 December 2009

A Potatoe - what a luxury!

A Potato – what a luxury!

Over the past two days we have enjoyed catching up with what has been happening in India since our last visit. We are always very keen to read the newspapers and talk to the locals to find out about the way they view the issues of the day and the battles they face in their everyday lives.

One of the biggest issues is the massive increase in food prices over the last 12 months. Headlines in yesterdays paper read “Soaring food prices threaten Indian stability” and suggests there could be political unrest as the cost of many basic foods is now so high, with a particularly horrific effect on the poorest people. Pulses have increased in price by 40% over the past year and the price of vegetables has shot up. Potatoes have increased in price by 136%. Catching up with one of our partner NGO’s we were told that he ordered one of this favourite potato dishes in a restaurant and it arrived but did not include any potatoes.

The situation has been magnified by the other major crisis which relates to water shortages. Mumbai in particular faces an acute water shortage, with supplies being reduced by 30% in the worst shortages in history. I am trying to refrain from making comments about the responsibility of Climate Change negotiations in Copenhagen at this point – oops, did that just slip out!

NGO’s in India are seeing 10 - 20% reduction in charitable giving from overseas. This is partly attributable to the current economic climate around the world, but there is also a great concern that trying to fundraise for India is becoming harder because of the perception that India is now a wealthy country. This is tragic when India still has 800 million people living on less than $2 per day and the gap between the haves and have nots seems to be getting wider.

PICTURES : The contrasts of India - a Rolls Royce showroom and a family of pavement dwellers.

Today we did take some time out to do some sightseeing, something we have not had time for in the past. Quite bizarrely the stories surrounding the terror attacks of November 2008 seem to be a point of national pride. Our driver was very keen to point out where the terrorists landed their boat, the obvious damage to some of the hotels they raided and other details of that day.

Sorry to hear you guys are struggling with the snow, we are having the opposite problem here with temperatures in the early 30’s.

Thursday 17 December 2009

Finally arrived in Mumbai

You may say this is not a picture you would expect to see from India....we'll you'd be right. The three hours in Cairo Airport between flights turned out to be over 24 hours thanks to Air Egypt. We were told our luggage had gone ahead to Mumbai but thankfully were accommodated in a very nice hotel. Our only option then was to make the most of the adventure and to see one of the seven wonders of the World. It was made more exciting (although less comfortable) by enjoying this experience on camels.

We arrived in Mumbai over 26 hours late and unfortunately could not make it in time to visit the Nursery School now being supported by Rianna's Fund in the slum area of Kalyan on the outskirts of Mumbai. We did receive some delightful Christmas Cards made by the

children and their performance of some famous English nursery

rhymes had been recorded on the mobile phone of our partner Raju. Thankfully we have some lovely photos of some of the children from our last visit and were pleased to hear about their great progress.

We did make it in time for lunch, our first curry of the trip and straight in to eating with our hands. Lunch was with our partner NGO 'Way True Life' to discuss the plans for building a new home for Street Children in Kalyan. After a 9 month wait 'Way True Life' have been granted their licence to receive overseas funding and are now looking for suitable land and putting together plans for the construction. Driving through this desperately poor area we saw a number of children living on the streets of this rapidly growing suburb. Kalyan is a major railway junction and this has led to a large number of children living from begging at the railway station and on the streets.

Back to our hotel for some much needed sleep and looking forward to a full day in Mumbai tomorrow.

Sunday 8 November 2009

Sports & Educational project - Chennai

Manimaran was a school drop-out & used to roam the Chennai slum of Sathymoornager whilst his parents worked long hours as rag-pickers. Project workers visited his family and with their cooperation were able to help Manimaran enrol in a transit school which he now regularly attends.

Mumbai Home gets the go ahead

After a wait of several months, Way True Life, the charity run by Pator Raju & Shilpa Ram, has been granted the necessary FCRA certificate to receive overseas funding. The couple are now actively looking for some land and a contractor so that work on a new Children's Home for 50 street children can begin soon

Rianna's Fund is already offering support to the pre-school (balwadi) and is committed to funding the new children's home working in partnership with Raju & Shilpa.

For regular updates on the progress please see our website;

http://www.riannasfund.org/