One of our co-walker brought it to our notice that there is a family which was in a bad condition and was explaining type of situation they were living.
It is sad to hear the condition which they were living. The lady lost her husband due to some kidney related disease couple of years ago and she has two children and both the kids, the elder boy is in his 7th standard and the younger girl in her 2nd standard.
The mom, Vijaya is making a living was with some sort of a household work and some little support which is not very frequent or very continuous from her father who himself was not a regular wage earner but a daily wage earner by collecting scrap and selling scrap.
So we decided to go and have a look. The co-walker suggested that we can install a solar lighting system for them so that the electricity requirement for them comes down and helps save some money on electricity. Keeping that requirement in view we as a core team, thought it's better that we go, talk to them, have a first hand experience and then take a call.
We went as a team and it was a long drive from the place where we live and we reached the place may be after a drive of one and half hours.
The house we visited was a single room house with an asbestos sheet which also had the basic electricity. We picked up some sort of talk with them and were generally talking like how they are, what they are doing for their livelihood, and so on. As we were talking we understood that the lady herself was struggling with some sort of a health issue and she said that she is frequently down due to head reeling and same was the case with her son also. And she was also telling that she had gone for medical checks and really nothing has happened. I normally don’t ask for medical reports during such visits but I don't know why on the other day i asked her if she can show her medical reports. What I could read from the reports is that she has vitamin deficiency and low haemoglobin levels. Low Vitamin B12 is a also a cause for head reeling.
Their real need was they need to have a good diet or at least they should add greens in the diet, may be a little milk, some papaya, which is easily available in their area.
We found that the electricity bill was just 130 rupees per month and was no point in installing a solar system . So we start pondering on the following two questions.
1. What could be a better way to help her out to get out of the situation for now, this is immediate?
2. What is the what can we do to help free up some money so that they can use it for their requirements?
We knew that there are two things that we needed to do immediately. Something for the now and something long term.
So we decided to subscribe for 500ml of milk for her and her children every day and suggested all the three of them to drink a glass of milk every day in the morning.
The second thing is to help them to free up money on a long term basis and how do we do that?. We understood that her son going to school by these private transportation of by using auto and other means by spending RS40 everyday and so we decided, let's buy a cycle for him and when he uses cycle that much of money can be freed up for their other needs. Even if it is 40 rupees a day that's going to work out to 800 rupees a month which is huge amount for them.
In action, we subscribed for milk and donated a cycle for this little boy. The action has just begun. The time we spent with the family is a time to empower them, encourage them that they are not alone. We could talk words of encouragement and truth of life and could help the two little kids to focus on the finish line and assure the mother that she is not alone in her fight. Vijaya is a on a Vijay path.
Paulraj Joseph
Video Report
