Sangita devi

Dear Kind blog viewers, thanks to the information given by one blogreader, we are investigating the possibility of free treatment available for Kajal under a special Government program currently being run in Punjab.

This will mean that we only need to support Kajal and her family with transport and living costs for while they are in Punjab and the funds already raised should cover that. We received a further $150 from Ted Harris, Sydney Australia, making a total of $358 for Kajal and her family.

One of the families of the 1000 children at Sandipani Muni School also needs help. They are very poor and live in a single room house with no running water or bathroom. The children's mother, Sangita devi, had a cezarian section three weeks ago, to have her second baby.

We could not ask for funds to help them at the time due to already running a fund raising campaign for Kajal, so we waited till now to ask you to please help this very needy family. They need Rs5000, ($106) to pay for the cezarian operation.

Thank you

Thank you to Raktambara das and Mukhya devi dasi, Belgium, for donating the lucky figure of US$108 towards Kajal's heart operation. We are now looking to raise US$1570 so that this little girl can have a normal life.

As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists

March 13, 2009
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
NEW DELHI — Small, sick, listless children have long been India’s scourge — “a national shame,” in the words of its prime minister, Manmohan Singh. But even after a decade of galloping economic growth, child malnutrition rates are worse here than in many sub-Saharan African countries, and they stand out as a paradox in a proud democracy.
China, that other Asian economic powerhouse, sharply reduced child malnutrition, and now just 7 % of its children under 5 are underweight, a critical gauge of malnutrition. In India, by
contrast, despite robust growth and good government intentions, the comparable number is 42.5 %. Malnutrition makes children more prone to illness and stunts physical and intellectual
growth for a lifetime. There are no simple explanations. Economists and public health experts say stubborn malnutrition rates point to a central failing in this democracy of the poor. Amartya Sen, the Nobel prize-winning economist, lamented that hunger was not enough of a political priority here. India’s public expenditure on health remains low, and in some places, financing for child nutrition programs remains unspent.
A World Food Program report last month noted that India remained home to more than a fourth of the world’s hungry, 230 million people in all. It also found anemia to be on the rise among rural women of childbearing age in eight states across India. Indian women are often the last to eat in their homes and often unlikely to eat well or rest during pregnancy. Ms. Menon’s institute,
based in Washington, recently ranked India below two dozen sub-Saharan countries on its global Hunger Index.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/world/asia/13malnutrition.html

Thank you

Thank you to Harish Gaur, USA and Anonymous, Canada who donated US$50 each for Kajal's operation.

We still have a long way to go before we can help Kajal. Please contribute what you can to reduce the US$1678 now needed for Kajal's heart surgery.

Help needed for a little girl

This is Kajal and her mother in hospital where Kajal is undergoing tests and waiting to have an operation.

Kajal is a 12 year old girl. All she asks is if she can have the operation after her exams so that she can pass 8th grade.

Kajal has been suffering her whole life, especially for the last three years. If you put your hand on her chest, you can feel her heart pounding away at an amazingly fast pace, working overtime to get its work done. Kajal has a hole in her heart.

Her parents are landless farmers who work as day labourers on other people's land, cutting crops by hand. They have no way of saving the $1778 (Rs80,000) that it will cost for their daughter to have this fairly simple, but lifesaving operation. If YOU can, please help.