A very sincere thank you to Lorenzo & Linda from Cambridge, UK.

They have very kindly donated for Uttam's surgery.
We still need some supporter for Rajkumar Shukla. LIke it says you save him you also save his wife and four children.

Uttam das & Rajkumar shukla. They need your help!

Unfortunately we have not received any positive response yet regarding Rajkumar, we posted his status 10 days ago. Now we have just come across another desperate case, Uttam.
I hope someone will come forward, and if you read this and you think you cannot help at least pass it on to someone you know, give them a gift, a gift of hope for a brajabasi family.

Uttam Das, 36yrs old. Father of one of our SMS kid, 645 Meeta. He is a rickshaw driver but now he cannot work at all. Wife is at home. he has two girls and one boy.
One year ago he was sick and he got an injection on the shoulder, which got infected.
The wound at the shoulder is drawing the secution from bones and underlying tissues. Day by day his shoulder bone is melting. This is called “Osteomyelitis” (T.B.).

He has no money to go to any doctor; he does not have enough even to buy food. We just gave Rs-200 to his wife for buying something to cook. He is in real trouble.
We have taken him to a doctor and the cost of surgery will be Rs-15,000, (GBP 200).

Please if someone wishes to help this man get in touch with me ASAP. rupa@fflvrindavan.org

One more mercy case in desperate need of help.

This is a story of Rajkumar shukla who is facing a big problem in his life. He has 4 children, 3 son and 1 daughter. He is an electrician. He had a shop on rent, but now both his kidneys are not working well. He cannot work anymore therefore he closed his shop and opened a little shop in his house, but that shop is not enough to provide him any financial support. His wife is running the shop. According to the doctor he immediately needs medical attention otherwise he will die in a few months.
14 years ago in 1992 he was having kidney stones. For treatment he got operated. That time the doctor told him that he will face problem in the future. In March 2006 he felt pain in one of kidney and slowly slowly he felt pain in both. He went to R.K. Mission hospital where doctor did ultrasound and said he urgently need treatment.
Every week he need to have two injections worth Rs.550 ($14) each, therefore he has to pay Rs.4,400 ($110) monthly for injections. Plus Rs. 2,000 ($50) in medicine every month.

Some people are waiting for him to die, so they can occupy his land. Mother is worried, that if her husband die what will happen to her and her four children. There is nobody else who can take responsibility of this family. His grandmother living with them is getting a pension of 2,000 rupees a month, by which they are running their family needs. Mother came to know about Food For Life last week from many people. She came to us and told about her problem. She said we are her only hope. If we will save this man, it will save six other lives also.

Schools be damned!

http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/
A classroom struggle
August 13, 2007
First Published: 23:27 IST(13/8/2007)
Last Updated: 23:28 IST(13/8/2007)

Schools be damned. That seems to be the only message that keeps getting hammered with every disheartening report on the status of schooling in India. If last week it was the severe step of having to file FIRs against teachers in the face of a staggering number of cases of abuse of children, a Unesco report has found that 25 per cent of teachers do not bother with attending school. Absent teachers result in a whopping 22.5 per cent of education funds being wasted. Add to this a previous report compiled by the Ministry of Human Resource Department that shows 23,000 schools across India have no teacher, and the picture is frightening. The cataclysmic deterioration in government education services, coupled with corruption and a bureaucratic set-up that dissuades many private players from starting schools has at its crux one issue: the lowering standards of teachers in India.
Photos we took of some Gov. schools in VRN.

Radha is hardly 2 years old

This morning we took her to hospital and she has been diagnosed with TB, (which we already new, and for which she was already taking medications) malaria and pneumonia.
She has been admitted urgently.
I took this photo when the mother brought her to school this morning.

The old lady ordeal continue, for her and for us!

"The ordeal for the old lady, Koki Haldar … and also for us.
The problem is finding a place to house her. We have tried to find a proper room for rent on two occasions and both times the lady has had to be moved because she is unable to walk to the toilet and has to use a toilet pan. In the absence of someone to clean her and empty the pot, which in fact is the root of this problem, the room begins to stink and the neighbors are unable to put up with this.
It’s been impossible to find someone to do this work even though we are willing to pay Rs 1500 or more to anyone to do this and it is only a few times a day, hardly entailing half an hour’s work.

We have tried all the possible way, literally no one wants to do this no matter how much we are ready to pay for it. Still it is our duty to take care of her.
Right now we had to again built a shack or a plastic sheet sort of room in a slum and put her there. We have a care taker but she does not want to clean her, we are still looking for someone, in the meantime one of our worker is kindly doing the needful.

As with the old man written about earlier, hospitals are not willing to admit them.
They flatly refuse. we have tried various institutions and the answer is always the same. The head of one of the better known charitable hospitals flatly refused to admit the old man we took there advising our worker “not to take on such headaches which also cause so much inconvenience to others.” And horribly so this is what everyone does, anyone could be dying on the road and hundreds of people will just walk by.

The alternative is to just look the other way when we see someone dying on the road.
Not much of a choice is it?

It’s clear from her condition that Koki Haldar may not live long. She is in need of palliative care and from a few experiences we have had recently we can see that Vrindavan is in need of a place affording these sort of destitute with this sort of care.

We are confident that with some funds we could buy a small plot of land, (100 square metre) and build couple of small rooms with basic facilities.
If anyone wishes to extend support to this very much needed service to those who have nothing left when they come to Vrindavan than the air they breath, and the mercy of the Lord, please contact me. rupa@fflvrindavan.org

I want to share this with you.

We have just published our August e-report (http://www.kinkari.com/enews/enews-current.html)
in the report we have an interview with an SMS student, her name is Hema and she was one of the first students to attend our school in 2000.
We know her from way before as she was coming regularly to our Kitchri distribution.

Old photos of Hema

Hema is 16 years old and in her interview she list her difficulties; she lives in one room house without water or toilet, she has three brothers and two sisters, her older brother and wife live with them. The father has suffered both kidney's failure and was in hospital for 4 months, she is very uncertain as she would like to finish her study at SMSS but both mother and father want to get her married, the only reason why they have not done it yet is because FFLV has paid for the father hospital bill as well as the continued medication that he has to take all the time, so we have told them that if they marry Hema we will stop the payment, and that somehow has worked so far.

Now is the midst of all that, Hema finishes her interview with the following statement:

Q. Do you see a difference in your life since you came to SMS?
A. Oh yes, a great difference. I have learnt how to be neat and clean and I also ensure that my brothers and sisters keep proper hygiene. I wash their clothes and mine, comb their hair and make sure they are neatly turned out for school everyday.
I was once completely confused, aimless and lost. Now I feel very confident and I can take care of myself. I am so happy to live here in Vrindavan. I know whatever happens I will be all right. In fact I am always happy and grateful for whatever life has given me and I can’t say I hanker for anything. I feel like I have everything I need.

This is what strikes me "I feel like I have everything I need".
I leave the comment to all of you..