Dancing!

In January, the kids got invited to participate in a dance competition in the city, against a few other children's home. The event was hosted by the Aashayein Fondation, a nice charity that helps others like us with stuff, and events like this.

Although it was a competition, we sent not our "best" dancers but our kids who needed the chance to perform in public to help bring out their personalities a bit more. Surprisingly, the kids won a prize for their performance and really got the audience excited during their number!

We're sure that they're *cuteness* contributed to them winning a prize!

Ready to go: Prajwal, Razak, Vinuta, Sadiq, Kartik, Shilpa, Kavya

Vinuta, Shilpa, Mamatha, Kavya, Netra, Prajwal, Meharbanu (house mother) Razak, Sadiq, Kartik and Blackie our dog 

Kumar, one of our teachers, stopped in to provide some moral support.

Netra and Razak front and center 

Sadiq and Kavya

Kartik and Mamatha

The UK Bash Raises $$

Many thanks to Matt Ryan and his friends in the UK for raising a nice sum of money for our kids and programs in Mysore!

Two cool dudes -- Matt Ryan, friend of the kids, and Johnny Marr, from the Smiths

Pavan Kumar

Pavan Kumar, one of our older boys, came to Karunya Mane in June 2010. When he arrived, he could not even read or write in Kannada, even though he supposedly just finished up fourth grade.

Pavan has no siblings, and lived with his mom in Mandya, about a two-hour drive from Mysore. Pavan's dad left them years ago and hasn't bothered to return. Pavan is a great kid, respectful, happy, and kind -- he just had no support at home because his mom worked, and he was often left alone.

Pavan started at Deepa School with our other kids in June 2010, and spent the first half of the year in 1st grade, trying to at least get a good foundation in the basics. He was then moved to 4th grade because of his age, and struggled. About midway through this year, now in 5th grade, Pavan finally started to catch up and has been doing quite well for most of the year.

Pavan on parent's visiting day with his grandmother, mom, and little cousin.

Pavan is also a funny kid; he likes to play around and dress up, like below -- he actually went to school dressed up like and elderly village woman! Everyone got a good laugh.

Pavan as old village woman, he's even got the seating posture correct!

Next year, Pavan will be in 6th grade. Let's hope that he'll continue his excellent progress in school. It is nice to watch kids who aren't able to read or write finally begin to improve in school and, most importantly, see their enthusiasm for school grow in the process. All they need is the right support and guidance. Many thanks to Deepa School's patient teachers and Pavan's after-school tutor, Jyothi!

LA Rocks -- again! Garth's Fourth Fundraiser on March 31st.

The fourth LA Rocks! Operation Shanti build-a-new-orphanage fundraiser will be held on March 31, 2012.

For more information, please see:

http://losangelesrocksoperationshanti.wordpress.com/about-the-event/event-poster/

The Numbers

A recent article in a local paper talked about the problems that children in India and other countries face, and the staggering statistics.

Translation:

Increasing Evils towards Children

     In India, thousands (lakhs) of children are deprived of their fundamental rights. Everyday, they are exposed to exploitation, injustice, and evils. Many children are seen in cities working as scrap collectors, beggars, and coolies in hotels and factories, and at bus stands and railway stations.

     Around the world, more than 1 billion (100 crore, 1 crore = 10 million) children work on the streets. Children are used in criminal activities like begging, prostitution, and selling illegal substances, all of which are very harmful to a child’s psyche. Such children have to deal with fear, violence, insomnia, an inferiority complex, and suicidal tendencies.

     Our society is embarrassed because of the poverty-stricken parents who sell their children and because of the teachers who sexually, physically, and verbally abuse students. An alarming percentage of Indian girls below 18 years of age are sexually exploited. Pressure from family members and caregivers forces children to sacrifice their natural instincts and give up their innocent childhood.

     India has more than four million (40 lakhs) child prostitutes. UNICEF reports state that 147.5 million (14.75 crores) children in India are homeless and stay in temples and public spaces. Thirty-three million (3.3 crores) children in India have never seen a school and 50,000 to 60,000 children are infected with HIV. According to the 2001 Karnataka census, the state has more than 350,000 (3.5 lakhs) child workers. The international publication Lancet stated that, in the past 20 years, one million (10 lakhs) female children have been killed because of female infanticide.

     Child marriages, child abuse, injustice, child labor, prostitution, criminal activities, and female infanticide have affected the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in India. We say that we have no actionable laws in place to solve children’s problems. However, child offenders must be tracked down and caught, and measures must be taken to prevent children from being involved in criminal activities. Programs must be put in place that constantly remind us of the problems that these children face, and we must help solve these problems. Governmental and non-governmental organizational involvement and cooperation is essential.

Original article:

Rachamma

We met Rachamma on the street in 2005, where she lived for many years with her kids and grandkids -- Venkatesh, Prema, Sumitra, Mohan, Latha, Jyothi, and Nanjunda.

Nanjunda enjoying lunch from his grannie Rachamma

 Today, most of her grandkids live at Karunya Mane. Nanjunda attends St. Francis School, and is doing very well in the English curriculum. He also stays in the school dormitory with the sisters who take care good of him. 

Rachamma
She's had a hard life but has always taken good care of her grandchildren

Rachamma visited Nanjunda at the dorm today and brought him a nice meal of rice and chicken curry, which he ate happily. Nanjunda's mother is very unreliable and unstable, and Rachamma and his Aunty Kumari have been the consistent support in his life. He gets temperamental and moody at times, not surprising given the torture he went through while living on the street with his mom, but otherwise he is doing well today and is much happier.

Kumari's dilemma and your assistance

Kumari sells flowers near Bombay

Tiffany’s in the city during the

season (May to October); offseason

gets difficult, as she has to

sell vegetables on the street, which

is not as good a business.

We're doing an emergency fundraising drive for one of our long-time street moms, Kumari. Kumari has chronic lung damage (fibrosis) from past bouts of tuberculosis. Because of her lung damage, even at her young age of 33, she does not have adequate oxygen intake (blood oxygen level of around 90 when sitting, even lower when walking). Her pulmonologist highly recommended that we get her an oxygen concentrator machine for her house, so that she can use it as frequently as possible, giving her increased oxygen and basically enabling her to live longer.

Without the machine, she has only a handful of years remaining. With daily supplemental oxygen, because Kumari is otherwise healthy, she could live to see her youngest kid, Mohan (age 6 and who lives with us at our children's home), grow into a handsome young man. 

Kumari is a single mother whom we’ve known since 2005, when we met her on the street, where she lived with her kids. Her oldest daughter Prema (13), youngest daughter Sumitra (11), and youngest son Mohan (6) live with us at our children’s home and attend good schools. Her oldest son Venkatesh (15), lives with Kumari and helps her with household chores.

If you would like to make a donation to help defray the costs of the oxygen concentrator for Kumari, we'd really appreciate it! The machine costs Rs.45,000 (discounted price from Mysore Medical Systems), is an American-made model, and is quite reliable. It would be the first such machine installed in Kyathmanahalli (a slum area in Mysore) where Kumari now rents a house.

If you are an Indian taxpayer in India, you can contact Tracy at 99451-00945 / info@operationshanti.org for more information or to make a donation. We’ll provide you with a receipt for your donation that you can use for tax purposes (80G deduction).

(photo courtesy Janea Wiedmann)

When first diagnosed with her lung

condition, Kumari needed oxygen daily for

about one month. She recovered and was

fine for about a year, but now needs oxygen

again.

We just started soliciting donations today, and so far, Mr. Madhusudan Pattanaik, a friend of our kids who has helped us over the past two years, has managed to secure for us over 15% of the funds we need, in just two hours! Thank you, Mr. Pattanaik.

Cheques/DDs should be written to: Akhanda Seva for International Shanti

For NEFT transfer, use the following:

Name: Akhanda Seva for International Shanti

Bank: Canara Bank, NRI Branch, Nazarbad, Mysore

Account Number: 230910-100-1439

IFSC: CNRB0002309

What to do with an old lightbulb?

At our children's home, we try to reuse items that would normally be thrown away. Sometimes, the kids and house mothers get pretty creative in this area. Check out what they did with an old lightbulb!

January 18th

A tradition in India on certain dates, such as the death anniversary or birthday of a loved one, is to provide a meal or food to others.

We thank everyone who has provided our kids with a meal or snacks on such an anniversary or birthday.

In particular, we thank the seven grandchildren of Sri H. S. Krishna Iyengar, who recently made a significant donation to us to help us feed our kids at Karunya Mane for many, many days, starting on January 18th. Mr. Iyengar would have been 100 years old this year, and he must have been quite an amazing person, as evidenced by his kind and generous grandchildren.

Thank you so much.

Why... ?

We see behavioral issues with our kids often, many who spent their infant years on the streets; here's an interesting article.

A Poverty Solution That Starts With a Hug

So, if you're in Mysore and want to share some hugs with our kids, or if you can read in Kannada and want to read stories to our kids in your free time -- give us a shout!


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/kristof-a-poverty-solution-that-starts-with-a-hug.html?_r=1&smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=SR-E-FB-SM-LIN-PST-010812-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click

Christmas at KM 2011

Christmas at KM this year was about the room decoration competition. The boys and girls each decorated their rooms for the holiday. The winners? The boys! The prize? Huuuuuge amounts of snacks and sweets.

Boys room -- lots of dancing and singing to Christmas carols!

The boys had a manger in their room. Left, Jyothi (tutor), Pavan (as a mini-Santa), Meharbanu (boys' house mother), and Anuradha Aunty.

Nice Christmas art by Pooja. 

In the girls' room; judge for the competition, Ganesh, sitting in the chair. 

Sulochanna, girls' house mother, passing out Christmas gifts to the girls.

Thanks to Kavitha!

Many thanks to Kavitha Mhatre and her fundraising efforts in December. She ran the Goa half-marathon in December and found generous sponsors for her run, raising Rs. 80,000 for our kids!


On the 18th, Kavitha and a couple of friends came to KM to visit the kids and hand over the donation. Thanks again to everyone involved, particularly her good friend Gautham, for the tremendous fundraising effort!

Meeting the girls

Checking out the boys' room

News flash: The Kids with Dia Mirza!

On the 23rd, a few of our kids had a real treat and got to meet a glamorous, charming Bollywood movie star and talked to her about Christmas and giving! For details, see the article:

(The girl with the glasses in the pink top is Arabia; she and Dia had a nice conversation in Hindi!)

http://ravinamedia.blogspot.com/2011/12/body-shop-dia-mirza-spread-spirit-of.html

Our new website!

Dear Friends of Operation Shanti,

News from Operation Shanti -- we have a new Operation Shanti website!

We hope the new site provides you with a good understanding of our programs and the people we help.  We welcome your comments.

Link to new website

Note: see top right section of the blog page to sign up to receive an email of each new posting.  You will be asked by FeedBurner to confirm your email subscription. You can also sign up to receive posts via other reader feeds, such as Google or Yahoo, or you can “like” the Operation Shanti Facebook page to see posts.

Thank you for your continued support,

Operation Shanti

p.s. thanks to matt and marianne for the incredible effort they put into our new website design!

Garth's Third Fundraiser

He did it again! Garth Hewitt and his team raised over $10,000 for us at their third LA Rocks! Operation Shanti event.

Garth and his team

The event was held at the Boys and Girls Club of Venice on September 17, and a ton of dedicated yoga practitioners came to help our kids and enjoy a nice practice.

The group

Entertainment

Asana time

Thanks again to Garth and his friends for the support -- a new home will be a great way to give the kids we help, and the many more that we could help, a chance for a new life.

Daily chores

The older kids at Karunya Mane all have their own chores to do each morning and evening. This teaches them self-discipline and gives them a sense of responsibility for keeping their home clean. 

Some of the kids love their chores, and find them more like "play" than work. Other kids are a little lazier and know every trick in the book to avoid doing their chores! 

The girls and boys have their own chores, including cleaning their living areas, washing the dishes after meals, washing their clothes and sheets and towels, feeding and washing our dogs (a definite favorite), and keeping the outside areas clean.

Vinod, Surya, and Sadiq bringing in their dry clothes.

Sample chores schedule by day.

Suma bringing in the girls' uniforms.

Drying the school socks, ties, and belts.

DEAF JAM fundraiser for Operation Shanti in the UK

If you're in Manchester in the UK, or anywhere in the vicinity on December 18, feel free to drop in on a fundraiser being held for Operation Shanti. See the posters below for more information -- it looks to be an amazing musical event!

See them on FB: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180316298720384

Sunday

On Sunday afternoons, the kids have some free time to hang around, finish up homework, and play. Here, they decided to put on a skit and did some singing and dancing from activities they learned at summer camp. They sure do love the spotlight!

Shanti, Suma, Manjula, and Prema

Divya, Renuka, and Manjula

Latha

Little Vishnu and Big Vishnu hamming it up

Jyothi and Thanmaye singing their favorite song

The Ganesh Festival

The Ganesh festival, which fell on September 1 this year, is a popular festival in India. On this day at KM, our boys expressed their creative flair. For their Ganesh puja (a religious ritual performed by Hindus as an offering to the Hindu god Gaesh), the boys built themselves a little Ganesh altar in their room to celebrate the day.

They used whatever materials they could find around the grounds, including flowers and custard apples for decorations and they made a clay Ganesh figure from mud and water. Quite creative kids!

Lokesh and Sharath

Manikanta and Vinod drew the Ganesh figure.

Lighting the deepam.

Drawing class with Nasera P.

As part of their extracurricular activities, the older boys and girls at KM now enjoy drawing class on Sunday afternoons with Nasera, a drawing instructor who lives in the area.

Some of the kids are quite talented, while others just see the hour as more play time... kids!

Nasera and the girls

Mamatha