Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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I am standing in a courtyard so small that I can almost touch the sides if I stretch out my arms.

 

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Yet in this tiny space I am surrounded by 15 families.

 

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This woman lives with her husband and two children in a space not much larger than a cupboard. I am about 6 feet tall, and would neither have been able to stand nor lie in it.

 

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Here, in this heart of darkness, Shahina Javed grew up.

 

 

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With a small amount of financial support funneled through Prantakatha, Shahina founded Roshni.

 

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The group consists of 16 courageous young people, most of whom are women.

 

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Together they tackle domestic violence; illiteracy, poor health among mothers and adolescent girls; substance abuse by early adolescents and youths; and child trafficking.

 

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After three generations, Paddyfield School had lost the vitality and genuine sense of mission I remembered from my early visits in the 1980's. Now, standing in Rajabazaar, I breathed that pioneering spirit again.

 

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'Roshni' is the Bengali word for Light.

 

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This is Kshama, a Roshni peer leader. She lives in a single room shared with eight other people comprising two families. She goes to college at 7 a.m. every day except Sunday, and when she returns home, she sets out to work with the children of Rajabazaar. She is 20 years of age.

 

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Roshni's core activities currently include:

 

- Right Based work on domestic violence with women

- Computer Training to young people

- Teaching spoken English to young people

- Awareness raising of young children on the early indicators of planned abuse

- Life training to mothers and children

- Raising awareness on community health & sanitation

 

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Most of Roshni's beneficiaries are ultra poor - earning less than 15 rupees per head per day. (This is less than 30 cents.) They include150 adolescents, 50 younger children and 40 mothers.

 

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The group operates from a small rented room in the heart of Rajabazaar. It is perched precariously atop a ramshackle building and accessed only by a rickety ladder. To Roshni it is immeasurably precious, because space is nearly impossible to find in such an overcrowded district.

 

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But the monthly rental on this space is 5000 rupees (about $80), to them an astronomical sum. When Purnabha and I visited that day after seeing Bappa, we discovered that they were on the verge of losing the room.

 

At that moment Roshni was without funding of any kind.

 

 

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Apart from limited mentoring from Prantakatha, Roshni has no local network, hence they are quite isolated.

 

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Purnabha and I came up with a plan that would provide Roshni with the finances, network and skills to develop its mission.

 

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I returned home to present this plan to my Board of Directors. I'm happy to say, they agreed to all that I asked for.

 

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For the next year, Roshni, Arc and Prantakatha will work together to develop an international relationship. Purnabha will visit them every week. He is now employed as Arc's development coordinator in Kolkata.

 

We have many challenges ahead.