Sambhali Trust: October 2007

Hi everybody,

Everything is good at Sambhali, we all do well. Little more famous in the city due to news paper articals, girls are enjoying to come.

Literacy:

Class 4.00 pm to 5.00 pm every day (Sambhali Trust).

(Giraffe, Butterfly, Peacock)

One of the excersies kids are learning.

Monica, Participant of the Literacy Program, came position 2nd in her class. Thanks for your blessings Mr. MacArthur and Miss Olivia MacArthur.

Marwar Festival

M.S. Sophie, our Volunteer participating at the Marwar Festival, foreign women - indian dress competetion, won 1st prize.

Our guest participating at this show for the 5th year and have won the 1st prize every year.

On left Sophie and on right Amanda, both of them are volunteering with the Sambhali Trust for the moment, both of them participated at the Marwar Festival for the foreign women indian costume round and won 1st and 2nd prizes.

In center Colleena from the Shakti dance school, based in Pushkar, good family friend participating at the Marwar Festival Jodhpur with Gypsy friends.

Fashion Show on 17th October in Jodhpur

Our Empowerment of Women from the untouchble community (Sambhali Trust) 2 year long project participants participated at a local fashion show promoting Khadi (cotton hand women Fabric) on the 17th of October. Girls participated in 3 different rounds on the run way, the NIFD institute accepted our request for letting our girls be their model for the day, My friend Kamlesh Choreographed and dress dezined for the show with other deziners. Newspaper cutting.

Soniya and Sophie, with makeup before the show.

Girls looking worried, sitting at the audiance from the auditorium.

The girls on the ramp:

Chandani's mum got murdered by her father, she didnt bring enough dowry and got burnt away, this was the time when Chandani was 8 months old. Just before her mum died she gave Chandani's respnsbility to her mother and father and she forgive her husband, Chandani was raised by her mother's mum and father, her grand-parents, some time back her grandfather also passed away, when he was alive he always wanted to see Chandani as princess in between many people. Chandani's grand ma came and joined us to witness Chandani on the ramp, the lady could not hold her tears and thanked us soo much, she saw her husbands dream come true and fulfilled the promise she gave to Chandani's mum that they will raise this girl in a very excellent manner.

Sophie playing "Hare Rama, Hare Krishna" on the ramp.

Soniya again

Sophie, my friend Kamlesh and Seema (model).

Sambhali, help!

In morning when I went to the workshop, I saw Manju and her mother, I met Manju in hospital, she works as sweeper in the same hospital where my mum was admitted in few months back. When the girls from Sambhali came to visit mum and when Meera stayed with mum to look after her at night, the sweepers from the hospital were quite surprised of the "Untouchables" mingling with the Rajput family as if we were not Rajputs or they were not Harijans, the staff at the hospital asked who the NGO participants were etc. When Manju got to know about us, she came to visit us with her mother and 2 children, she was in deep sorrow. She is married for 8 years now; she has 2 children, the younger one 4 year old and the older one 8 years old. Manju lives with both the boys at her in-laws home, her husband does not live with the 3 of them for 1 year, instead he lives with another woman, 15 years old or so, he also has a child with her. Manju has many economical problems and above all not having husband and now the in-laws want to kick her out of the house. She can only live in that house if she paid some rent for water, electricity and room, she is poor. She has no money to even send her kids to school, we found the kids sponsors to go to school. Her in-laws have been insulting her every now and then; they don’t let her use the kitchen, toilet or any other facility from their home. She has a small room 8*10 feet, this is where she baths, sleeps, cooks and uses neighbor’s toilet. After got physically abused by her in-laws and being at the police station at night, where nothing worked to help her. The following morning she came over to Sambhali with chest ache, head ache, bruises and moving teeth looking for us to support her and her 2 children who were now no longer allowed to live in that room. Her husband without divorcing her lives some where else with the new “wife” and the child, when we went to Manju’s in-laws they said they have no longer relation with their son so they have no longer connection with their daughter-in-law ”Manju” and her children . So we all at Sambhali took swear that we will help her get her rights and we all at Sambhali stood up next to her, we went to the police station and did everything legally, we also took police after requesting a lot with us to drop Manju at her home (in-laws). Police joined us for security reasons, after a lot of talking, hassle and bustle we managed to let her stay in that room. Now we are looking for a lawyer who could help us fight for Manju and get her to live in that house with her 2 children. The in-laws have now taken a new step and they want to sell the house, they said the reason of selling the house is also for some “depths”. She is happy that she has hopes from us and now she is not alone to fight for her right. We were in the newspaper the next day, here is the copy from police station and the news paper article.

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M.S. Tamannah Borana, our new art and craft teacher. Monday - Wednesday from 11.00 am till 1.00 pm. She teaches everything from embroidery to toy making, from tye and dye to block printing.

Our new Volunteer from October - December 07 with Sophie, M.S. Amanda from Australia.

Sophie on visit to Pammi's home.

Bharati and Kiran, our new participants for the "Empowerment of women" from the untouchble community. (Bharati has big chances of going to school from next year, Amanda has proposed us to sponsor her school until she would like to study) .

D

eepika at leisure