Cases of HIV Infections Increasing

This morning, 28 Jan 2009, when I visited the home of the Missionaries of Charity the Sisters who follow the order of Mother Teresa were narrating about the pathetic condition of a little girl, aged about 6, who has been abandoned by her parents as both of them have died of AIDS, leaving her and her parents alive. And the girl is sick with severe malnutrition, and is now admitted at the sister's place. She, luckily, is not infected by the deadly virus. The sisters were telling me that she wants to go back to her home soon. When I enquired about the reason, you just cannot imagine the reply of the girl. "I have to take care of my grand parents!". She is clearly heading towards unsafe survival strategies. She can, as she grows up, end up as a victim of human trafficking and sex-trade. I can feel that. I am not sure if I will be able to help her; and I am not even sure if I will ever meet her again.  It raises fundamental questions about human intentions to help one another. To be with the poor. It also makes me reflect on the present situation of the three districts and I serve along with Social Welfare Institute.

The cases of HIV positives in the North Dinajpur, South Dinajpur and Malda districts is increasing at an alarming rate. Last year North Dinajpur district was declared as the district with highest number of HIV cases for any district in India. One of the rural government bodies (Panchayat - a cluster of villages with about a population of 30,000) in South Dinajpur, named Chokbrighu alone has over 100 HIV infected cases !

New Arrivals !

We are pleased to Welcome Chelsea Krema of Seattle University who has come as part of the International Internship Development Program of the Seattle Univ., WA., and she has already began helping Social Welfare Institute (SWI)  since 14 Jan 2009.  Chelsea arrived in India on 10 Jan. She will stay at SWI till the end of March 2009. Chelsea is a friend of two of our past students, Scott Ochs and Andrea Smith. Welcome Chelsea !!!

Ms. Hannah Munch of Germany is in Social Welfare Institute to understand and learn on Organizational Management and how development projects are managed on the field. Welcome to Hannah ! She arrived on 27 Jan 2009, and is expected to be in Raiganj till the first week of March 2009.

Guiding Disaster Preparedness

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has organized a Workshop in order to prepare a "How to Guide" for Community Based Disaster Preparedness (CBDP) Programs supported by CRS across the Indian sub-continent. The "How to Guide" is to be designed for use by CRS and its Partner organizations for effective implementation of CBDP so that the Guide could set benchmarks and identify best practices that can be used for replication at other places as well.

The sessions have been very heavy... after a long journey that I had from Raiganj to Delhi via Kolkata, reaching at the midnight of 20 Jan. Ms. Amy Hilleboe, Senior Technical Advisior on Disaster Risk Reduction at CRS Headquarters in Baltimore is the main facilitator, and the whole lot of interactive sessions were extremely tiring for the first day, and very useful personally, as I had a lot of opportunities to convey my opinions.

Cellular Silence Day - Keep Your Cell Phones Off on 30 Jan - the Day of Martyrdom of Mahatma Gandhi

In Support of Cellluar Silence All Over the World.... Let us Unite !

Click on the link and sign :  http://www.petitiononline.com/30JAN09/petition.html

Cut off Cellular Noise at least for a day....

Transfers and Appointments

Sr. Naveena who served the poor, especially through Health Programs, from 15 Jan 2008 has been transfered by her Provincial. She will leave for Kolkata by the 15 Jan 2009. Social Welfare Institute and all its partners wholeheartedly thank Sr. Naveena for her wonderful and dedicated service in Raiganj.

Mr. Mathias Hembrom,  a driver of Social Welfare Institute, has joined our Regional Forum Association of Bengal Collaboraors for Development (ABCD) as driver, in Kolkata. We wish him all the best !

Ms. Jonaki Kujur, who was in-charge of taking care of the micro-insurance program has left Social Welfare Institute, and has joined the Community Care Centre run by SWI, at Malda as an outreach worker. Thank you Ms. Jonaki !

Needs Assessment Workshop

SPHERE India in collaboration with the West Bengal State Inter-Agency Group, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and several other partners organized a workshop on Needs Assessment in Emergencies so that all Non-Profit organization level stakeholders may learn to assess needs and requirements of various communities in times of emergency situations, specially during disasters. Mr. John Hembrom and Ms. Bimala Baru represented Social Welfare Institute in the workshop which took place from 5-7 Jan 2008 at Baruipur, South 24-Parganas District, West Bengal. Puthumai A. Nazarene, joined the workshop on the last day for summarizing exercises. He also conducted a training to the senior staff of all Caritas India and CRS supported partners on MIS for the Community Based Disaster Preparedness program in West Bengal.

Dacoits attack Raiganj School

Jan 5, 2008

Armed dacoits attaked the guard of St. Xavier's School in Raiganj, a premier educational institution in the Diocese of Raiganj and escaped with cash worth about 70,000 rupees. 

On the night of 4 Jan, at about 1.30 a.m (5th morning), a group of seven / eight armed men with guns, swords and rods sneaked into the compound of St. Xavier's School, and then they attacked the night-guard, sliting the palm of his right hand and vandalizing the office rooms of the Principal, Fr. Varghese Palli S.J., the office of Vice-Principal Fr. Chandran S.J., the canteen and the stationary rooms of the school.  The miscreants took away the money that had been kept for the payment of teachers on the 5th Jan, Monday, the day on which the scho

ol was to reopen after the Christmas Vacation.

The night guard woke up the fathers at 3.15 am after the dacoits had ran away with the money, leaving him with his hands tied behind. It is only after the night guard reached the residence of the fathers they realized the immensity of the problem. The District Superintendent of Police was immediately informed and a large contingent of police force was placed to investigate the dacoity. In the same afternoon sniffer dogs were brought from Siliguri, and on Wednesday, 7 Jan, forensic experts from Kolkata arrived in St. Xavier's school to collect more evidences and finger-prints. (In picture : the room of the Pricipal)

One of the guards of the school had been detained for couple of days for enquiry, and he has been released. No other person has been arrested so far. 

The school serves over 1,300 children of the Raiganj town and other nearby villages and towns. The exams scheduled for 5 Jan have been postponed. 

Since the office of the District Superintendent of Police is hardly two kilometers away from the school, the incident has raised quite a few eye-brows.

Most Memorable News at the Year-End

There has been so much being talked about at the end of the year.... The economic meltdown, the attack on Mumbai, the election of a Black-American as the President of United States, the attempts being made towards containing Global Warming, etc. Among all the melee of events and the shows that the T.V. screens and the other media will spurn out, the most touching, most sublime events of human heart will be lost in the wilderness of this noisy world. However, it is nice to end this year with an incident from this year that touched me the most :

On 23 Sept 2008, a most touching event took place place in a far off corner of Tamilnadu, a southern State of India. Hithendran, 16, had been declared "brain dead" by the doctors days before, after the young boy had met with a road accident. His parents Mr. Ashokan and Mrs. Pushpanjali, doctors by profession, decided to do something more humane and profound with their son who was now living a vegetative life. They heard of a little girl in Chennai whose heart had been seriously damaged and the doctors had put the girl on artificial systems of survival. The parents of Hithendran thought of the unthinkable. They asked the doctors to donate their son's heart to that little girl so that the girl can live with the heart of their son! With a massive operation done by an expert team of doctors, today, the girl is still alive, to celebrate the first day of 2009, and the boy had been laid to rest eternally, with a heart that continues to tick in another person's body.  

Humanity does not live on great economies, nor on soil acquired by war and violence, nor by threat and evil.... but by the Hearts that Love beyond all telling!

HAVE A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009 !

Struggle against Poverty

The nineteen hours long journey by road from Bhubaneshwar to Raiganj did not stop the Director Puthumai A. Nazarene from rushing to Balia, a village on the Bangladesh border of India, closer to a little town called Bindole, about 20 kilometers from Raiganj to be with a group of villagers, people, some Government officials and my Staff to distribute a machine that can press leaves that have been stitched together into plates! As part of the anti-human trafficking program, SWI gave away a Pressing Machine that uses a dais to press leaves into plates, which can become a regular source of income for a widow whose son left her in search of job six years ago, never to return. Fr. Herman Kindo, Sr. Naveena, Ms. Barnali Roy and Ms. Sushmita Sarkar from Social Welfare Institute, along with few field volunteers took part in the program. The program is being supported by Manos Unidas, through Association of Bengal Collaborators for Development (ABCD). The village has formed an Adolescent Girls' Group to monitor the movement of adolescent girls and women so that women do not fall prey victim to human trafficking.

The Visit to Orissa

I traveled to Bhubaneshwar, in the State of Orissa, India for a meeting on Skill Development Programs for Drop Out students. The meetings were on 16-18, Dec. at New Marrion.  The discussions were a lot boring with so much of presentations in a large group of over 160 people, with only two speeches each day that were of worth mentioning. On 19th, I spent the morning with a relative mine who stays in Bhubaneshwar, and the afternoon with the family of Mr. Mishra, a friend of mine. At 5.00 p.m. I left along with three German students-friends for Raiganj, and reach Raiganj on 20th noon.

During the stay in Orissa, I also had the opportunity to speak with several persons including the Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, and Sr. Suma, the Regional Superior of the Missionaries of Charity, on the atrocities against Christians. Fr. Sarto and Sr. Christine who also were in Orissa at that time traveled to Kandhamal and few other places to meet the refugees, which I could not do due to the meeting that tied me down to the city. However, I am sharing with you a brief set of photographs that are being shown on the left side of this blog.