Believers Church launches Bio-Sand Filter to provide safe drinking water
Water is the essence of life.
We may survive without food for days or weeks, but without water we can hardly
live for a day or two. It is ironic, therefore, to know that more than three
million people die in India each year from water-borne diseases, children
numbering to over 2.1 million. Forty-three per cent of the water-related deaths
occur due to diarrhea, not to forget other deadly diseases like jaundice and
typhoid.
The Bio-Sand Filter is an
adaptation of the traditional slow-sand filter, which has been used for
community water treatment for almost 200 years. The Bio-Sand Filter is smaller
and adapted for intermittent use, making it suitable for households. The filter
container can be made of concrete or plastic and is filled with layers of
specially selected and prepared sand and gravel.
This filter was developed by
Dr David Manz in the 1990s at the University of Calgary, Canada.
Most Bio-Sand Filters consist
of similar components. Pathogens and suspended solids are removed through a
combination of biological and physical processes that take place in the
bio-layer and within the sand layer. These processes include mechanical
trapping, predation, absorption and natural death, where pathogens finish their
life cycle or die because there is not enough food or oxygen for them to
survive.
So far, the Church has
distributed 30,000 filters to needy families in the country, with the
dedication and cooperation of 33 project coordinators and 100 support staff. Over
150,000 people have benefited from the Bio-Sand Water Filter Project, besides
several institutions such as schools, hostels, health clinics, jails and
orphanages.
Believers Church launches
DORA, a microfinance initiative
The Church’s team
value is to be self-motivated at work with a commitment to the people they serve;
to be responsible, accountable and transparent for the work one does,
demonstrating cooperation with all concerned with fairness and justice.
Believers Church launches
DORA, a microfinance initiative
If you thought microfinance
was the concern of only banks, think again. The Believers Church, an Episcopal
church headquartered in Thiruvalla in Kerela, has come up with DORA, a
microfinance initiative, to help the underprivileged people in far-flung rural
areas of the country.
Microfinance
can be described as the provision of financial services to low-income clients,
including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to
banking and related services. In a country like India, where a vast majority of
people live in villages and do not have access to the modern facilities of
banking and Internet, DORA seems to be just the right initiative to reach out
to them and help them enjoy economic benefits.
DORA’s mission is to reach
two million families by 2020 by providing them not only financial services but
also giving them training on skill development, improving their social
awareness and providing them micro credit and micro insurance and educating
them on savings, irrespective of caste, creed and community. DORA, thus, is a
holistic initiative of the Church and aims at not only financial liberation but
also community development.
Under DORA, the Church encourages people to set up, establish, maintain and manage
centres for the study of herbal medicines, handicraft, agricultural
development, tourism, fisheries, horticulture, dairy farms, small industries,
micro enterprises and other subjects of interest for community development. It
also plans to initiate programmes for the development of women and children
both in urban and rural areas.
In its broad
gamut of financial services, DORA will promote self-help units, microfinance,
micro insurance, microsavings education and micro-enterprise
development services.
development services.
But DORA is just
one socio-economic programme of the Church. The Church believes that to build a
strong nation, a healthy and aware community is a must. Therefore, the Church
also focuses on other social issues like awareness on HIV/AIDS, alchoholism and
drug abuse; women and child health programmes; education on hygiene and
communicable diseases; social-housing programmes and encouraging children to
attend schools.
In rendering
these services, the Church upholds its organizational value, which is to treat
all its stakeholders with due respect and dignity and look upon them as people
of integrity, faithfulness and commitment.
Jesus Well Project of Believers Church provides safe drinking water to 15 lakh families
Water is a prime natural
resource, a basic human need and a precious national asset. But India, with a
sixth of the world’s population, faces a rapidly growing water crisis, both in
urban and rural areas. These include wasteful practices in the use of water,
particularly for irrigation, water-logging and salinity, and inadequate access
to safe drinking water and for sanitation purposes.
According to a UNDP report, more than a billion people have no access to safe
drinking water and almost two million children die every year due to the lack
of clean water and sanitation facilities. As a result of poor water resource
management, high population growth, rapid urbanization etc., the pressure on
the finite water resources is mounting every day. Climate change is also
affecting the hydrological cycle, significantly affecting freshwater production
and its distribution.
India
is not immune to this water crisis, either. It is expected that India will
experience severe water stress by 2020 with the per capita availability of
water projected to be less than 1,000 cubic metres. Water availability,
both in terms of quality and quantity, has declined to such an extent that many
parts of India, rural and urban, today face a drought-like situation.
With
such alarming circumstances lurking ahead of us, the Believers Church has taken
upon itself the significant task of building water resources, like hand pump,
open well, tube pump etc. By installing these in rural areas, the Church wants
to help the poor people in villages and downtrodden places who do not have
access to clean drinking water, necessary to live a healthy life. With this
mission, the Church has come up with the Jesus Well Project. Under this
project, the Church has built open wells, bore wells and hand pumps in villages
where people do not have access to clean drinking water.
So
far, the Believers Church has dug 5,270 Jesus Wells across the country. With
its commitment to help the needy and the underprivileged of society, the Church
has reached more than 15 lakh families in the remotest parts of the country and
dug up wells and hand pumps to help villagers enjoy the benefits of safe
drinking water and clean water for irrigation purposes.
Understanding
that Uttar Pradesh is the country’s most populated state, Lucknow has the
maximum number of Jesus Wells (324), followed by Gorakhpur at 283. Other districts,
cities and states where people today are enjoying the benefits of Jesus Wells
include Jorhat (317), Kolkata (276), Udaipur (275), Agartala (267), Orissa
(238), Jammu and Kashmir (74), to name a few.
Believers Church transforms lives with its Community Development Project
The leadership of the
Believers Church believes in spreading the good news of the Gospel not just in
words, but through deeds. The Church, thus, undertakes various social and
developmental services to reach out to the needy and underprivileged of society
to give them hope and share God’s love with them. The Church is dynamically
involved in varied social and educational projects, charitable activities, community
development projects and relief works.
One of the primary programmes
under the Church’s Community Development Project is poverty alleviation. Poverty
is one of the main challenges facing Asian countries today, and the problem is
more serious in the context of India. Although India boasts of a high economic
growth, the reality of economic disparity in most Indian villages is
contradictory to the fact. India has the world’s largest number of poor people
living in a single country. Out of its total population of more than one billion,
350 to 400 million people in the country live below the poverty line. Nearly 75
per cent of India’s poor live in rural areas; most of them are daily wage
earners, landless labourers and self-employed householders.
The CDP project of the Church aims not only
at poverty alleviation, but also at the holistic development of an individual
in his personal and social life. The mission of the Church is to break the cycle
of poverty from India and other Asian countries by providing those in need with
necessary tools to earn their livelihood. These include sewing machines,
carpentry tools, cattle like piglets, cows, buffaloes, camel, goats, sheep, ducks
and chicken, bicycles, tin sheets, cycle rickshaws, weaving machines, trolley
vans, fishing nets, umbrellas, pulling carts, barber kits, embroidery and kadai machines. The purpose of providing
poor people these income-generating tools is to make them economically self-sustained
so that they remain free from the clutches of poverty. 
The CDP project has so far transformed the lives of more than 10,00,000 people over the last few years, including minority communities like dalits. The Church offers its services to the entire nation irrespective of caste, creed, religion or language. The project includes social, educational, medical and health programmes as well as disaster relief and rehabilitation measures. The Church has various self-employment schemes which aim to bring economic empowerment and thereby improve the standard of living of the poor and the marginalised sections of society.
Sowing seeds of hope in young hearts
By Shirley Williams
bishop k p yohannan with bridge of hopes children
It was almost a decade ago when Dr K.P. Yohannan, Metropolitan of Believers Church, was travelling to Mumbai. He didn’t know then what he was about to witness would encourage him to start a project years later that would help thousands of children live a better life. To his utter shock, and dismay, he saw a baby drinking milk from a stray dog on the roadside. The child was left without a mother and there was no one to take care of him. With no source of nourishment, the child started suckling a dog.
In another heart-rending incident in Malda, Kolkata, he saw many women queuing up to sell their kids in order to earn some money to feed their family.
Is this what we call “India Shining?” What could be more unfortunate in a country where a baby, abandoned by his parents, has to rely on a street dog for nourishment and where mothers put up their children for sale?
According to a UN report, of the estimated 25,000 people who die every day in the world (3.5 deaths every second), a vast majority of them are children found in India. Nearly 1.8 million infants die each year in this country. One out of every two children under three is malnourished. In January 2012, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh described the findings of the Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA) report by the Naandi Foundation as “a national shame”. According to this report, which is based on a survey of more than one lakh children across six states, as many as 42 per cent of under-fives are underweight and 59 per cent of them suffer from severe stunting. The survey notes that the prevalence of malnutrition is significantly higher among children from low-income families.
Millions of kids are born in this country every day into households that are below the poverty line, thus relinquished to a fate of bonded labour, child prostitution, abandonment, malnourishment and diseases. Hungry for food and starved of love, these children grow up despised for their social status.
It was with the aim of bringing hope to these millions of hopeless children that the Believers’ Church of India started the Bridge of Hope initiative. Dr Yohannan himself has been deeply involved in spearheading an array of educational programmes under the Bridge of Hope. The entire programme was designed by his German wife Gisela Yohannan after a well-researched survey to cater to the needs of India’s poor. A child development project, Bridge of Hope aims at holistic development of children in need. The project has, so far, catered to the needs of a whooping 60,000 underprivileged children all over India by providing them free education, a nutritious diet, school uniforms, school bags and books. With 525 centres across the country and 2,400 qualified staff (most of them with a degree in Master of Social Work) to manage these centres, the Bridge of Hope initiative of the Believers Church has given a new ray of hope to children who were left with no hope for a brighter future.
Each Bridge of Hope centre in India has about 100-200 children under its care. Each day after school, these children gather at the centres where they are helped with their school work and provided a nutritious meal. The children are taught not only school lessons, but also basic hygiene, like washing hands before every meal, trimming fingernails, brushing teeth and bathing regularly.
The Bridge of Hope programme understands the important role parents have to play in their child’s life. Hence, parents are involved in this project as much as children. The project staff meets parents on a regular basis and counsels them on childcare, critical thinking, health and hygiene. In some centres, women are taught sewing and tailoring as means of self-employment. “After a training of six months, we see whether a family can sustain itself on these skills. If we feel a family is really poor, we give them a sewing machine for their livelihood,” says a Bridge of Hope staff member.
Believers Church aims to provide free education to 500,000 children in the future. “There is no hope for the majority of the people in India without an aggressive move towards giving education to the poor,” Dr Yohannan says. Adult literacy, especially female education, is also a priority of the Church. The survey of the Naandi Foundation reveals that awareness among mothers about nutrition is low; 92 per cent of them have never heard the word “malnutrition”. No doubt a mother’s education level determines her child’s health.
Although the Believers Church has come a long way in giving a better life to destitute children in the country, challenges remain. According to Siny Punnoose, director, Bridge of Hope, finding dedicated staff is a big challenge. “It is also not easy to convince parents in remote villages to send their children to school. It takes a lot of persuasion and effort on our part. Another problem is finding good tutors and teachers in these villages to teach children. It is also challenging to ensure the safety of the female workers involved in this project,” Siny adds.
Asha Grih is another significant initiative of the Believers Church which provides shelter to street children. Established on July 1, 2007, and licensed by the Government of India, Asha Grih shelters rescued children who have been exploited or trafficked. These children are registered under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, through the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), Government of Delhi, NCR.
“It is not easy to rehabilitate street children. Most of them are picked up from railway stations. Many times they run away from the shelter home too, and we have to go looking for them. But in some cases, they come back themselves, saying they have nowhere else to go,” says Fr Daniel.
14 year old Rajesh and his five younger siblings were rescued by Asha Grih in collaboration with the CWC on December 12, 2011. They were driven out of their rented home in Dwarka after their mother died of tuberculosis. Their father who had left them long ago is untraceable till date. With no source of income left to support the schooling of their younger brothers, Rajesh and Rajeev took up work in a motor repairing shop. They were picked up, along with their three brothers and one sister, by the CWC from a slum and sent to the Asha Grih shelter home in Dwarka. Today, the kids have a roof over their heads, education, nutritious meal and love and care. Similar is the case with hundreds of homeless children who have been rescued by Asha Grih.
At present there are 30 boys in the shelter home. 119 boys have been restored to their families since 2007. A girls’ shelter home has just been started. One of Asha Grih’s future initiatives is to rehabilitate 5,000 homeless children in the next five years.
profile of bishop K P Yohannan
Thousands of saints
across centuries and religions have walked the face of this earth, spreading
the love of God and the message of hope and peace. Many ordinary men have
followed in their footsteps, caring for the downtrodden and the suffering.
Mother Teresa and Baba Amte are two shining examples of the manifestation of
the love of God. Dr K.P. Yohannan is another.
Metropolitan of the
Believers Church and founder of Gospel for Asia, Bishop Yohannan comes across
as a simple and humble man. But behind this simplicity lies the richness of his
heart, behind this humbleness one can find love radiating for his fellow men.
Born on March 8,
1950, in Niranam village in Kerala, Bishop Yohannan is thankful for the godly
heritage of his parents. “My call to dedicate my life to the service of the
Church had everything to do with my mother’s praying and fasting for me to
serve God”, he says.
Bishop Yohannan felt
the call of God at the young age of 16. Soon after he went to North India to
help the poor. He spent the first two years in Rajasthan, where life was
extremely hard due to the harsh summer conditions and lack of basic amenities.
But to him it mattered little, for he knew he was serving God. “There was much
joy in suffering, knowing that I was serving Christ and showing His love to
people,” he says.
Father Francis Chan,
author of “Crazy Love”, testifies to the loving person Bishop Yohannan is. “He
is a simple man. You would never know he is the leader of a massive ministry. I
learned a lot from his wisdom and was surprised by his humour. The most
impressive trait, however, is his love. You would think that love would flow
from all Christian leaders, but sadly, this is a rare trait,” Father Chan says
in a foreword to Bishop Yohannan’s best-selling book, “No Longer a
Slumdog”.
He has rightly said,
“We GET to represent God on this earth by rescuing others as He has rescued us.
Few blessings in life compare to the joy we experience when we are used by God
to bless those in need.” There is, perhaps, no better example than how Bishop
Yohannan has devoted his life to bring hope to millions of suffering people
worldwide, especially children.
Dr Yohannan admits he
was not always sensitive to the needs of the street children. “I must confess
that in the early years of the ministry, I was blind to these kids. Although I
had been confronted by them all my life, my heart didn’t break for these
desperate children like it should. Then one day the Lord got my attention while
I was standing at a busy street corner in India waiting for the traffic signal
to turn green,” he says.
A young girl came
begging to him, saying, “Sahib, my father died. My mother is sick. She can’t
beg anymore. And I have a little brother who is very hungry. Would you please
give me a few pennies so I can buy some bread and take it to him?” The light
turned green, and the world moved on, but Dr Yohannan was rooted to the ground,
his heart pierced by the young girl’s words. She was not more than 10 years
old. She had dirty fingernails, was barefoot and in rags. Dust mingled with
sweat running down her face. Dr Yohannan felt God’s voice whispering to him,
“So what do you think about the little beggar girl you just met? Is her life as
valuable and precious as…?” and the face of his own daughter, Sarah, appeared
in his mind.
The two were around
the same age, but their lives couldn’t have been more contrasting. No more
questions were asked. Dr Yohannan was left to process his own thoughts. What
followed was one of the most difficult walks of his life. “It was after this
instance I realised the pain and passion our Lord carries in His heart for the
forgotten children in the villages and slums of the poor and destitute
nations,” he says.
“No Longer a Slumdog”
chronicles real-life stories of children sold into prostitution, slavery and
begging and how, after being rescued by GFA missionaries and social workers,
hope is growing in their hearts of a better life. So far, GFA Bridge of Hope
has rescued almost 60,000 children from a life of destitution. A child development
project, Bridge of Hope provides free education to these children and a
nutritious meal to ensure a healthy diet. New Delhi alone has 2,123 children
under 14 Bridge of Hope centres.
Mother Teresa once
said that the biggest disease was not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the
feeling of being unwanted. Under Dr Yohannan’s initiative, millions of children
who were abandoned by their parents or who had to steal to make their ends meet
due to acute poverty, have found new hope. Love and care shown by the GFA
ministries have changed their lives, and they are now working to transform the
lives of those around them living under conditions they once lived.
Vichy (9) and Tusli
(7), living in a slum in Andhra Pradesh, became rowdy and disobedient after
their father left them to go to Bombay to find work. They wasted the Rs 1,500
which their father had thoughtfully left their mother. They would also steal
from the slum people and harass other children. They became troublemakers and
everyone considered these little boys a headache. One day, a local GFA Bridge
of Hope leader named Yadav heard about the plight of the family. He immediately
made arrangements for the two brothers to be enrolled in the Bridge of Hope
centre. It took a great deal of patience to just get the unruly boys to sit
through their lessons. But with prayer and patience, Yadav was able to instill
in them discipline. He also shared with them lessons from the Bible. Slowly
their lives started to change for the better. Now Vichy, the elder one, visits
the same people he used to harass and shares the love of God with them. Instead
of calling him “headache”, the people in the slum now call him “Little
Pastor”.
Dr Yohannan has
reached out to not only children, but also widows, left by their husbands and
ostracised by society. Under the Believers Church childcare initiative, Bridge
of Hope, widows in Bidhaba Para (Widows’ Colony) in West Bengal have been able
to fulfil their dream of educating their children. This programme, inaugurated
in Bidhaba Para on September 17, 2011, has six projects and caters to the needs
of more than 650 children of the widows residing in this colony. Medical
checkup and blindness control programme are two such projects. Under Dr
Yohannan’s guidance, these widows now have the confidence to face society and
dream of a more dignified life for themselves and a better life for their
children.
Another milestone
achieved by the Believers Church is the setting up of the Believers Church
Medical Centre (Purulia Hospital) in Purulia, West Bengal. The hospital was
inaugurated on July 28 this year.
For some mysterious
reason, thousands of people in Purulia District are affected by leprosy. Lepers
have always faced the mockery of society. Haunted by social stigma and treated
more like social outcasts, the lepers have never enjoyed a dignified existence.
People throw away food and clothes to them to avoid physical contact. It is to
these lepers that Dr Yohannan extended his hand of friendship and love. Today,
the Believers Church provides healthcare and rehabilitation to 1,738 leprosy
patients in 37 colonies in Purulia and Bankura districts in West Bengal.
Twenty-three paramedical leprosy workers and 11 sisters from Sisters of
Compassion, besides doctors and staff nurses, work in these colonies bringing
hope and healing to leprosy-affected people. Eighteen tuition centres and one
Bridge of Hope centre educates more than 500 children of lepers to give them a
better future. The Church also has a shoe-making centre which makes shoes
exclusively for these lepers and provides it to them free of cost.
believers church founder bishop k p yohanan conversations with kids
bridge of hope
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he
who did nothing because he could do only a little” – Edmund Burke
The Girl at the Red Light
How many of us
encounter young children, men and women begging at the traffic signals every
day? Pause for a moment and think about them. Do you generously give them money
every time they knock at the window of your BMW or Audi? Or do you ignore them
to the extent that they are almost non-existent for you?
In his book, No
Longer A Slumdog, Bishop K.P. Yohannan, Metropolitan of Believers Church,
narrates one such incident he was witness to. Many years ago, he was standing
at the signal in one of Mumbai’s (then Bombay) busy street corners, waiting for
the light to turn green. Little hands grabbed him from all sides, asking for
money. And then he heard the voice of a tiny girl saying, “Sahib, my father
died. My mother is sick. She can’t beg anymore. And I have a little brother who
is very hungry. Would you please give me a few pennies so I can buy some bread
and take it to him?”
The same old story
you would say. The light turned green and the world hurried on. But the Bishop
was rooted to the ground, his heart pierced by what the young girl just said.
He emptied his pocket and gave her all the money he had.
As he walked on, he heard
a voice in his mind asking him a deep and penetrating question. “So what do you
think about the little beggar girl you just met? Is her life as valuable and
precious as…” and the face of his own daughter, Sarah, flashed before his eyes.
Can you imagine your child begging?
This is a ridiculous
question, isn’t it? Why should your child ever beg? After all, you are capable,
by God’s grace, of providing the apple of your eye the best of luxuries. Your
child probably sleeps on a comfortable bed with satin sheets and pillow covers,
surrounded by his/her favourite toys. Isn’t it the most beautiful feeling, to
see your child sleeping peacefully? As a parent, it must give you immense
satisfaction that you are able to fulfil all of your child’s needs, and would
willingly do so to make them happy.
But what about the
little beggar girl or boy who extends their hand expectedly towards you in the
hope that they will earn a penny or two? As you sit comfortably in your AC car,
oblivious of the heat and dust outside, an innocent child dressed in rags, who
should be at school under the laws of the country, including the Right to
Education Act, is sweating it out to earn a few hundred rupees. Sadly, even
after begging from morning till night, this child is unable to get education or
a nutritious meal.
Is the life of the beggar child less
valuable than your own child? If your answer is yes, can you come up with one
reason why? And if your answer is no, are you doing anything to help this
little child?
“One of the most shocking reports I ever read was published in the
English daily, The Indian Express, several years ago. On the front page was a
photo of a little boy, half naked, lying on the sidewalk of a busy street. Next
to the boy was a stray dog. Upon closer examination, I saw that it was a female
dog and the little boy was actually sucking her milk. The caption below read:
This Dog Is His Mother.
The three-column article went on to
describe the heartbreaking agony that homeless children face as they try to
survive on their own. Many years have passed since that article came out, and I
wish I could say that things have got better. But I can’t because the media
keeps telling me otherwise.”
n Bishop k p Yohannan
Mud is the only food they know
In one of the
Church’s weekly prayer meetings, a staff member presented a story he had read
on the BBC website. The story had a photo of two little children from North
India, 3-4 years of age. Their stomachs were distended eight to ten inches out
from their bodies. They lived in a quarry where their parents worked. The
meagre earnings could get them only one meal a day. In their desperate hunger,
the children had eaten mud from the quarry, making them sick. One of the two
kids was already showing signs of kidney failure.
National shame
According to a UN
report, of the estimated 25,000 people who die every day in the world (3.5
deaths every second), a vast majority of them are children found in India.
Nearly 1.8 million infants die each year in this country. One out of every two
children under three is malnourished. In January 2012, Prime Minister Dr
Manmohan Singh described the findings of the Hunger and Malnutrition (HUNGaMA)
report by the Naandi Foundation as “a national shame”. According to this
report, which is based on a survey of more than one lakh children across six
states, as many as 42 per cent of under-fives are underweight and 59 per cent
of them suffer from severe stunting. The survey notes that the prevalence of
malnutrition is significantly higher among children from low-income families.
According to UNICEF,
more than one billion children around the world are deprived of one or more of
these essentials: adequate shelter, food, safe water, sanitation, health care
or education – living in conditions we can hardly imagine. (Source: No Longer A
Slumdog)
“Throughout the world more than 150 million children between the ages
4-14 are involved in child labour. The worst fate of all awaits little girls
who end up trapped in prostitution. Some are kidnapped or tricked into it and
worse, some are sold by their parents themselves. There are more than 1.2
million children involved in prostitution in India. It is hard to realize this
is not a novel, or a movie; this is not even a nightmare. This is a reality –
for millions of children on the earth at this very hour. Looking into their
faces you won’t see innocence and trust, but rather hunger, pain, suspicion and
fear. Is there an answer to their suffering? What can we do to bring them hope?”
-
Bishop
Yohannan
Is there room in your heart…?
You don’t have to
feel guilty about loving and caring for your own children and grandchildren.
But, is there room in your heart for one or two of the world’s millions of
suffering children? They are not only looking for money and food but also for
hope and love. Can you give them some? And most importantly, are you willing to
give them some? Is it too much to spend a few hundred rupees from the thousands
you earn every month to help a child in need? Or is it too little?
Bridge of Hope: Sowing seeds of love
60,000 children. 480 centres all over India. Over
1,000 project coordinators and social workers. 1,600 teachers and 900 cooking
and non-teaching staff.
These figures speak
for themselves. Bridge of Hope is a community development project of the Believers
Church initiated by Bishop Yohannan. It started as relief centres, after the
2004 tsunami, in Vaniakudi, Simon Colony and Irumbili in Kanyakumari and
Thirumullai Vasal, Velankanni, Poompukar and Sirumugai in Nagapattinam in Tamil
Nadu. By April 2005, they were established as Bridge of Hope centres.
Today, Bridge of Hope
has seven centres in NCR and seven centres in New Delhi, providing education
and a nutritious meal to more than 2,000 children in these two regions alone. All
children enrolled in Bridge of Hope centres are provided free tuitions and free
school bags, note books and other school supplies.
“Education enables
children to become leaders and strong and upright citizens of tomorrow. Through
education, liberty won’t be limited to the hands of the few,” Bishop Yohannan
says.
Hope for a better future
At Bridge of Hope we
believe that holistic development of a child is essential for the overall
development of the community. After all, if you want a nation to be developed,
it has to start from the community. Hence, Bridge of Hope not only focuses on
education and nutrition, but also undertakes other developmental activities
with the aim to bring about the physical, intellectual and socio-political
growth of a child.
Some of the other
activities of Bridge of Hope include awareness programmes on varied topics,
like smoking, drinking, HIV/AIDS, importance of hygiene (including bathing and
brushing teeth regularly and washing hands before every meal); observing a
Community Day where children are taught to plant trees and keep their
surroundings clean; educational trips to factories, police stations, post
offices etc. to show children how these community offices function; organising
Annual Day, Sports Day and exhibitions where students can participate to show
their talent in science, singing, dancing etc.; medical camps where free
vitamin tablets are distributed; vocational training for women; distribution of
self-sustainable gifts such as cattle, carpentry tools, sewing machines,
bicycles and push trolleys for street vending to help parents in
self-employment.
Bride of Hope staff
also hold counselling sessions for parents, giving them parenting tips to
ensure a healthy and loving relationship with their children.
From darkness to light
Pohor comes from a
poor family in Simna district of Tripura. His parents were daily wage labourers
who worked hard to meet the family’s needs. Despite poverty they tried to take
care of Pohor to the best of their ability since he was their only child.
When Pohor turned
six, his parents enrolled him in a local school. Their desire was to send him
to a good English medium school, but they could not afford it. Pohor also had
just one pair of school uniform, so he used to go to school in dirty clothes.
Tragedy struck the family
when Pohor’s father passed away. After a few months, his mother, too, died,
leaving Pohor in the care of his grandparents. They started looking after him,
but his grandmother also passed away. Thus, Pohor was only left with his
grandfather, who was unable to work because of his old age. It became difficult
for them to have even a single meal a day and many times they went to bed on an
empty stomach. Soon, Pohor had to drop out from school and start begging from
his neighbours to survive.
One day the staff of
the Industry Bazar Bridge of Hope centre conducted a survey in Pohor’s area. It
was then they came across Pohor. They decided to enroll him in the Bridge of
Hope project. That was the turning point in young Pohor’s life.
His health began to
improve since he started receiving a nutritious meal every day. He also
attended classes regularly and started receiving quality education, just like
his parents desired.
Today, Pohor is in
the sixth standard. He enjoys singing and playing with his friends. He also
excels in all extra-curricular activities conducted by Bridge of Hope. “I am
very grateful to the Bridge of Hope centre for the difference it has made in my
grandchild’s life,” Pohor’s grandfather says.
Overcoming Barriers to Build Bridges
Making this
difference to the lives of thousands of children would not have been possible
without the dedication of the Bridge of Hope staff. In a vast country like
India, where the geography, culture and language change every 10 km, it is
indeed a daunting task to reach out to people in the remotest corners of the
country. But this is where the unparalleled devotion of Bridge of Hope comes in.
Unmindful of the
physical dangers, the volunteers selflessly put society first. And it is this
passion to reach out to the needy that keeps them going in their mission.
Sijo Jose, programme
director of Bridge of Hope, has been involved in this project for the last
seven years. He believes accessibility is the main challenge in carrying out
their duties. “Many of our projects are
in villages where it is almost impossible to reach. Often zigzagging through the rain-soaked grass, we
take off our shoes to wade through flooded areas. With no roads or vehicles in
many of these areas, the only sounds we hear are of the domestic animals and
our feet sloshing through the water. I had the privilege of serving in the north-eastern
part of our country. In this part of India one does not know when and where he
will become a scapegoat at the gun point of terrorist and militant groups. It
was always a challenge for me to visit the Bridge of Hope centres there to
discharge my duties amidst difficulties we face in terms of transportation, terrorist
groups, antisocial elements, etc.”
Another
obstacle he highlights is making the parents understand the importance of
education and sending their children to the schools nearby. “It is a common
sight in our villages that children start working from a young age to earn for
their family. Sending them to school will stop this income. Hence it is very
tough to persuade parents to educate their children,” Jose says.
“I had always wanted to serve
society and help the needy people. Among the organisations that help little children,
Bridge of Hope was the only one which had its projects running in the truly
needy places of our nation. Often we see these kind of projects established in the
heart of cities or places where they get a lot of public attention and media
coverage. But I found Bridge of Hope very sincere in its objective of reaching out
to the underprivileged of society by opening centres in the most remote locations.
This organisation has poured its heart and soul into helping needy children in
the thousands of villages in India, the real India.”
Sijo Jose, programme director, Bridge of Hope
Future plans of Bridge of Hope
At present, the
Bridge of Hope caters to the need of 60,000 children in India. But the work we
have started is just a drop in the bucket compared to the need and opportunity
before us. Out future goal is to provide education to 500,000 poor children
through 5,000 project centres.
“Through these
children we want to develop the community and villages. Children act as the
beacon of hope for their families, friends and communities. We would also like
the project centres to act as literacy and vocational training centres for
villages, especially for mothers of the children enrolled in Bridge of Hope,”
says Siny Punnoose, programme head.
If more well-wishers
come forward to support this project financially, we will be able to help more
children get education and give them hope of a better future.
Are you willing to
build a bridge of hope in tiny hearts? Let’s come together and make this world
a better place for our children, so that they remember us not for the cruelty
they suffer, but for the beautiful world we created for them.
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