From supporting widows and their children to providing happiness boxes, combating holiday hunger and making a savings bank for every girl child right from school, organisations in the UK & India have been striving to build fiercely independent women of the future.
After years of being under suppression, an independent nation not only needs freedom to live and heal, but also needs freedom from the yoke of orthodox practices that are obsolete and may have taken a backseat because they rank lower in priority as compared to fighting for the freedom of the nation.
In the words of the great Mahatma Gandhi, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” Strengthening the UK - India ties, there are several charities and organisations that have been trying to live by that motto and have been serving both the countries, reinstating faith in humanity and service to mankind. Asian Voice spoke to several such samaritans who have been leading the bandwagon of bringing about a positive change to make people truly independent.
The Loomba Foundation
The Loomba Foundation aims to run a global campaign to eradicate discrimination against widows. The initial focus was on India, where some 46 million women– almost 10% of the female population of marital age – are widows. Speaking to Asian Voice, the founder, Lord Loomba said, “This pandemic has been quite bad for the charity people who normally donate are not in a position to donate and on top of that, the work on ground is almost at a standstill. I feel it will only get better when the vaccine is produced.”
He said, “People are so ignorant about the plight of the widows that they need to change their mindset. In my opinion it comes down to education. Why people in India and other developing countries are suffering and why they are not suffering in the Western world - is because of education. When you are educated you do know what is right and what is wrong and how to organise your own life. When you are not educated you cannot get a job, you cannot be independent and you are dependent on other people and other people take it as a burden, they misuse them they abuse them, and it is like modern slavery for them.”
Speaking about the need of the hour, Lord Loomba said, “India is independent, we need widows and their children to be independent. A widow should be able to learn some kind of skills so that she can get a job and once she gets a job she will be self reliant and be able to educate her children and lead a life of dignity.”
Pardada Pardadi Educational Society (PPES)
PPES has been working for holistic rural development through social and economic empowerment of women and girls in Western Uttar Pradesh. It provides free education, job opportunities, healthcare, and livelihood enhancement for girls and women from the marginalized sections of society and enables them to break out of the cycle of poverty.
Asian Voice spoke to Andrew Horne who shared the achievements of PPES and its contribution to the lives of girls. PPES incentivises girls in Anupshahar to attend school, have three free meals in a day. “The organisation saves Rs 10 per day per girl child (for attending school) which can be encashed by the pupil on completing her education. The money can come handy to her when she steps out to pursue higher education or to start a business. This sum can go upto Rs 100,000 if the child attends school regularly. PPES faced challenges at the beginning when the village folks didn’t want to send their girls to school due to the traditional outlook of keeping women at home and safety issues while traveling. PPES took care of it and provides a transport which is a pick and drop system to ensure that families feel secure in sending their daughters to school,” he said.
Andrew also stated that the number of Self Help Groups (SHGs) is 510, and women involved in SHGs are about 5485 in number. 110 women have a full time job in the production centre and PPES distributes over 1100 meal boxes while the number of fabric masks produced by them is 179,298.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation
The Akshaya Patra Foundation strives to tackle the issues of classroom hunger and educational access in India. The CEO, UK/Europe, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Bhavani Singh exclusively spoke to Asian Voice and said, “The Akshaya Patra Foundation is extremely busy at the moment. We have served close to 85 - 100 million meals during Covid-19 pandemic. Schools are still closed and children are still going hungry so we are doing multiple things. We have served labourers who have migrated from the cities to their hometowns, be it on trains or by road and we have also served family. We are introducing thousands and thousands of happiness boxes.”
Happiness boxes are boxes that not only have ration for a whole family but they also have things like a tool box and writing material, which can enable children to be able to work and study at home. “It also has a dental kit for children. For girls, the kits include sanitary pads. We call this little service The Akshaya Patra Happiness Box. Regardless of the impact and nature of Covid, we continue to serve in very large numbers. That's what we've been doing in India,” he added.
“In the UK we have served more than 150,000 people so far. Right now we have served close to 48 to 50 thousand meals to children in a week, who are out of school at the moment but their parents unfortunately cannot keep them at home and these children suffer from holiday hunger. We are running a large service in London where we are serving thousands of children everyday. The menu is different for children. The food we serve continues to be vegetarian and we serve items like Spaghetti bolognese and not Daal Chawal while it continues to be compliant with all the standards laid by Akshaya Patra.” Singh added.
“I feel after hundreds and hundreds of years of development, if we still have people who are hungry and deprived of a basic plate of food, then it's a slap on the face of development. To me, development is only development if it's inclusive and if it is development with dignity. Development at the cost of dignity is not development. If you want to improve the Nation's per capita GDP, not just aggregate GDP, you must feed your children well. So that when they go to school they can learn well and when they come out of school they do better. So unless and until we improve nutrition, there is no way by which you can improve education. You can have prosperity without well being but the prosperity you have won't be sustainable,” said Singh.
Singh feels that there's a huge lesson that the world can learn from this story. “At an organisational level we believe that this is not charity. Akshay Patra is the mind of a corporate and the heart of service,” he added.