March 2018

The gift of and education and the desire to give back

Kokal, with her beautiful smile and soft-spoken demeanor, is second to last in a family of seven children living in Rangpuri. Her parents were virtually forced to move their family into the city of Delhi, like so many others, in search of work. Her father had incurred much debt trying to survive with his family in the village, so leaving was the only option. Kokal said that once they arrived in Rangpuri that she and her family experienced many days and nights without food and so her parents began to pick through the garbage to find what they could to sustain her and her siblings. When she was five years old her parents were approached by Anuja, a partner of the Hope Venture who was starting a school just around the corner from their little shack. She offered to not only educate Kokal, but to also provide all of the supplies she would need for the entire year. Education is not a priority when survival itself is your greatest stress, so the idea of pursuing an education for any of their children had not been a possibility before. But now, this gift of an education has given Kokal hope… the hope of a different life and the drive to make a difference.

Kokal is now 13 years old and has received more education than any one else in her family. She remembers how excited she was to start to learn the ABC’s in both Hindi and English. Her test scores are very high and she has grown into a quiet and well-spoken leader amongst her peers. As a child she witnessed those who were supposed to protect her community either just not care, or use their authority in destructive ways. She now aspires to become a police officer so that she can go back into the slum and “Stop the wrong doings in society and change it for good.”

Defying oppression and creating beauty.

I want to capture that moment when we met. All day I had waited in anticipation. Peter told me all about her amazing designs and how happy he was she was graduating. Vinod shared how she was deaf since birth and since she didn’t know sign language she was basically mute. Everyone was so inspired by her, she was who everyone was talking about. She was the woman who was not only achieving great things for any woman, she was doing something no one had ever seen. She was dreaming in ways that hadn’t been done before. 

Shanthi. 19 years old. Woman. Born deaf. Poor. 

Shanthi. Fashion designer. Graduated tailor. Aspiring shop-owner. World changer.

It is true. This young girl named Shanthi is changing her world. She was the hero of the women graduating alongside her. They praised her for doing something that seemed to defy what they thought possible. In a world where women are not free to dream, Shanthi did. Unable to pay for training, she joined the hope venture vocational training center. She now has learned a skill: tailoring. And she’s good at it. She now designs her own clothes, drawing out each design, and then stitching them herself. She’s not just getting by, she’s excelling. Her designs are being used by all the women at the training center.

This is just the first step for Shanthi, though. She has plans of learning more, getting a degree in fashion design, and returning home to open her first shop. Remember, this is a woman, born deaf, in the slums of Jeevanahalli we’re talking about. A place where women are not free to just go out and get a job and better their future. A place where the poor are untouchable, unable to change their status in life. A place where the disabled are disregarded and mistreated. Shanthi is all three. In her world, thats three strikes, she’s out. But she wasn’t striking out.

She was the talk of the day. Everyone was telling me I have to meet her. 

I don’t think I can quite explain what happened the moment we met, it seemed to transcend the space we were in. I had been told she could not read the lips of anyone except her aunt, not the teacher’s, the leaders, the other students, only her aunt’s. Yet somehow she could read mine.

Here I was, a long-haired kid from Nebraska, standing in the slums of India with a world-changing-ground-breaking-hero, talking. Just talking. As if the world was standing still and there we were, defying the odds of humanity, having a conversation. She was not just saying some words, she was inspiring something deep within. She was called mute, but her voice was beautiful. She was not shy, she was confident. She smiled and laughed. I goofed around and she let her guard down. Our conversation was not long, and we didn’t say much, but that first moment there was a connection I will never forget. She told me I could be the first customer at her shop, that I was welcome any time. Here she is changing the world around her, and inviting me to come and see. 

There is oppression in this world. Oppression of women, oppression of the poor, oppression of the disabled. The oppressed are told to stay down. You are at the bottom, stay down there. The oppressed are not taught to dream, they are not free to achieve, they are stuck, trapped, bound. 

Shanthi is not staying down. She is rising up. She is achieving and dreaming and soaring. Her new skill is providing an income for her and other women. Instead of having to pay for clothes she is making them and selling them, and her life is improving. Right now the chains of poverty are being broken.

I have to thank Mary Latha, Peter, Vinod, Charlie, and the Hope Venture for giving her the chance to do these things. Celebrating her was a special moment, and I hope I never forget it.

The hardships of poverty and the beauty that can lie within.

Danush is the class clown. He’s the one all the other boys look to. Some might even call him a bit of a trouble maker.

When it was his group’s turn to dance he was nowhere to be found, off messing around with his friends I bet. Maybe he just wanted a better entrance, had to let the crowd build in anticipation a bit. He was hilarious. His dancing was way better than the other boys, maybe not technically, but at least in confidence. He was a character, hamming it up in front of his classmates, making them all laugh.

Danush lives at the top of a large rock quarry in southern India. He lives in a village that is dependent on the quarry. Most of the parents work in the quarry, and it is back-breaking labor. All-day long these men and women take homemade sledgehammers and smash granite, breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces. This is home for Danush.

I got to go with him to his house. It was a tiny cement box, about the size of your bathroom. He sleeps on the cement every night, side by side with the rest of his family. I laid down on the floor next to him; he thought that was funny. Danush’s family doesn’t have enough money to buy him food. His mother died when he was younger, and his father can only come home once a month because of work. So he lives with his aunt.

Hi my name is Danush and I live in a cement box the size of your bathroom. My mom is dead and my dad comes home once a month. We don’t have enough money for food so I go to this place called the feeding center, it’s right by my house. Most of my friends go there too, since our village is very poor many of us don’t get food if we don’t go there. It’s one meal a day, but it’s better than nothing. 

The problem is less physical and more mental. To take down cyclical poverty it must happen at the source. What is keeping these people down? I don’t like hearing that poverty is going to be gone in our lifetime because I think it is bigger than that.