Jan 20

I made progress today! Today I talked with several people. I went to Pappan Kalan which is the site of Vidya where Daniel works. Interestingly, Pappan Kalan is basically a slum created by the government. Several years ago the government of Delhi moved a lot of migrant workers who were essentially homeless, living in tents under the bridge outside of the city. Initally there were shacks and tents but over the years a village was built. I wish I could show you what it looked like. Its difficult to explain anything to people who have not seen something. Basically it’s a neighborhood with lots of small homes (basically apartments) all crowded together. The conditions and construction are terrible! There is very little room between the buildings, just small roads which most run perpendicular to each other creating squares. Mostly it is a Muslim community. The apartments were painted various colors on the outside. The tiny muddy, filthy streets were crowded with people, especially children, and stray dogs. Dogs are rarely made pets in India so there are tons of stray dogs all over the city. They are very dirty, but the children here play with them in the muddy, littered streets. Even though it was really cold most of the children didn’t wear shoes. Its not that they don’t have shoes of their own or that they could borrow, but many just don’t know that shoes should be worn when its cold. Anne told me that there is a woman in her class that has frostbite on several toes, but doesn’t understand that it could go away if she’d keep her feet warm with socks! General health standards that we know are just non-existent here! Its so surprising! There was a baby standing alone outside in the street with no pants or socks on. The homes are very tiny. Still, there was something about the neighborhood that was cute. It was buzzing with people. Indians are very relationship oriented. They know their neighbors and are always walking around chatting with each other. Something about the neighbor was nice. But it was a mess.
Pappan Kalan is a project of Vidya, and several other NGOs work there as well. There are between 2,000-3,000 people crammed in there. Vidya has several classes for children. They have to pay ten rupees to attend each month and the goal is to get the kids smart enough to get back into government school. Many kids in the slums drop out of school because they don’t see the use of it, they aren’t encouraged at home, and/or they help their parents out by working instead. Vidya tries to get kids back in school and to give them a good education so that they can have more opportunities. It also has programs for women. At Pappan Kalan there is a sewing class which is also a class for women’s empowerment. They have discussions which help women to see that they actually can do quite a lot of things and have potential to do things in the future. After talking to Anne who explained the background of Pappan Kalan I traveled to the Vidya head office to talk to the vice-chairperson of Vidya.

It was interesting to speak with Mala because her perspective of Vidya was slightly different than that of Anne and Daniel. Of course she told me of how great Vidya is and of all the programs it has. The biggest need that the NGO has is money. There are so many programs it runs in several locations that it is very limited by the funds it has. Anne told me that she thinks Vidya spreads itself too thin. Mala told me that there are several donors including GE which I am going to look more into. There are no partners in the community, but there are donors mostly from the U.S. that contribute to the projects. Vidya has programs in these areas: education, adult literacy, skills programs, health programs and empowerment. I will include more details from this interview in my blog tomorrow.

I was also able to finally talk to Bella today. The interview was great but it came after 8 or 9 attempts to meet with her! I will include more details about both tomorrow but I do not have the time to do so today. Today has been very busy and tonight we had a farewell program for all of the volunteers leaving after this week. I am exhausted and I’ve got to get up early again for work.