News from Shishu Mandir
Vol I, Jan - Mar 2013
Gree$ngs,
This is our very first newsle5er. Although long in our plans, it has taken a while for it to come together. The idea is to bring out a quarterly newsle5er that will offer a glimpse of our world at Shishu Mandir. There is never a quiet day here, not with the children and not with the staff and former students or new students or their families or the community! Every Monday, our Director Anand Sir, sends out a note to the members of the Society. It’s oIen the last mail of the day, wri5en when everyone’s gone to bed. And the readers know that he has sat down at the computer and taken $me to reflect on the week gone by. The mail carries news – both happy and distressing. There’s a lot of pain, when a child has suffered a setback and the work we do is to alleviate this as much as possible and provide a childhood worthy of these children.
This quarter, we bring you news from the beginning of the year. January is a special month for us. We oIen begin our new endeavours in January. It’s also the month of celebra$on, since it’s the $me when our Founder, Hella Mundhra, is with us and celebrates both Christmas and her birthday during this $me. We started the New Year with a special 2-‐day programme to celebrate the inaugura$on of the new Shishu Home and the 30th anniversary of Shishu Mandir. Joining us were 3000 people from the villages that we support, along with a number of members from Germany, members from Timken, Mast, Qualcomm, KPMG, Cognizant, UST Global, Alcon India Ltd., and Bosch India Founda$on. The inaugura$on of the Home took place on the 2nd of January with Mr Sanjay Koul, MD Timken India as Chief Guest. On the 3rd, Jus$ce Santosh Hegde joined us as Chief Guest and released a souvenir, The Tree of Hope. Hella’s autobiography, translated into Kannada as Ananya Sadhaki by Mr Pradeep, was also released. The highlight of the evening was the play Let the birds sing. Directed by the theatre group Rafiki, it featured past students of Shishu Mandir enac$ng glimpses of Hella’s life. Of course, no celebra$on goes without special dances by our students and we witnessed the expert performances of the tradi$onal dances of Karnataka – Yakshagana and Dollu Kunitha.
The celebra$ons con$nued into Founder’s Day on 11th January. Students from the 9th standard had wri5en a birthday song set to music by Mr Bosco, one of our teachers. The tradi$on of cake cudng ensued followed by the Sports Day. Hella had agreed to celebra$ng a Founder’s Day on condi$on that it will not be only about her and we have therefore always held our Sports Day on January 11th. More cultural performances by our children followed and this came as a surprise to many, for they had been so busy with rehearsals for the earlier programmes.
In the months to come our Home is poised for change. We have begun the process of shiIing out of Ulsoor to the new Shishu Home in KR Puram. In many ways, this move marks the end of an era. 25 years ago, Hella struggled to buy two small buildings for 16 children and staff, to have a roof over their heads, warm meals everyday and the opportunity for a be5er life. The years have been difficult and yet, an extremely fulfilling journey for Hella and all of us at Shishu Mandir. We have learnt to celebrate small successes and come together to find answers, when we face troubles. We have learnt too that help will come and so it has in all this $me. Friends of Shishu Mandir have come forward to be an important part of our work here. To all of you, we would like to say that we may have grown in these decades, but thanks to Hella there is plenty at Shishu Mandir that will always stay the same.
Shishu Home
At the Home, we have 26 children who come from most trauma$zed condi$ons or heartbreaking circumstances. There are also babies who come to us to find adop$ve homes and while some find families easily and early, there are a few, who linger for various reasons. We share two stories here, of Monish who has been with us for three years, and of Preethika, an orphan, who is one of our star students.
Monish, learning resilience
Monish was 5 days old when he came to us with a broken arm. When he suffered another fracture within few days, we were concerned. At the hospital he was diagnosed with Osteogenesis imperfecta or in layman terms, glass bone disease. The disease has no cure and Monish requires life-‐long treatment, which requires that he be admi5ed for three days every few months during which $me he is administered bone-‐strengthening medica$on. For the past three years Monish’s treatment has been possible thanks to the dona$ons by individuals and corporates. In March this year, Monish completed his 9th dose of treatment. The medica$on has enabled as normal a life as possible. He has had only one hairline fracture in two years and this is also thanks to the dedicated care by our staff. Monish s$ll has several restric$ons, but he is developing extremely well. He eats his meals independently, asks to go to the toilet (well, almost always) and most of all,
he enjoys being with the other children. He interacts with them, knows the Home children all by name and even their belongings, and when they gather outside to play, he bosses them around like a big li5le man.
Preethika, despite all odds
We take a lot of pride in how far Preethika has come. It was in 2000 that she joined Shishu Mandir School, when it operated from the Home premises in Ulsoor. Having lost both her parents, she had come to live with her maternal grandparents in a slum. Her older sister was taken away by the paternal grandparents. Both sets of grandparents blamed each other for the death of their children – Preethika’s parents – and cut off all $es between themselves. The two girls were also separated with each set of grandparents claiming one for themselves.
Preethika’s grandmother brought her to the school and we admi5ed her in. AIer a few years we decided to take Preethika into the Shishu Home, as her home situa$on was extremely pathe$c with a bedridden paralysed uncle and old grandparents figh$ng for survival. Here, she grew up comfortably in the company of the other children and the aun$es. Preethika enjoyed school and excelled at academics. She went on to complete the 10th standard School Leaving Cer$ficate (SSLC) with 85 per cent. With these high marks she secured admission at the reputed Mount Carmel College to pursue her Pre-‐University Course (PUC). Preethika has just completed her 2nd PUC exams and is awai$ng the results. She aspires to con$nue her studies and enroll for the B Com degree in the coming year. For her academic achievements, she received a scholarship of Rs 10,000 by Brady Company (ins$tuted by the company as a cash award for the student who secures the highest marks at Shishu Mandir) and Rs 10,000 by the Karnataka Government.
Preethika’s sister, unfortunately, was not sent to school by her paternal grandparents. She was married off at a young age and is now the mother of two. We are a5emp$ng to bridge the gap between the sisters so that they may renew their rela$onship.
A Five Rupee Note
For a young boy, barely seven years of age, speaking only Telegu and coming from an impoverished environment, Anand Babu faced hopelessness, financial stress and no visible future. Son of poor, but hardworking parents, Isaac and Gracie, both working as housekeepers, Anand Babu held on to fulfilling his parents’ dream of a good educa$on and a bright future. He faced adversi$es at every step and even the loss of his father at an early age and later the tragic loss of his mother leaving him constantly facing difficul$es and disillusionments. He faced this crisis in his life with the strength and support provided by Mama (Hella Mundhra, founder of Shishu Mandir), Anand Sir and the encouraging teachers at Shishu Mandir.
Anand Babu’s mother, Gracie, who worked for Shishu Mandir, felt that this would be the right place for him to get a decent educa$on. She requested Mama, who evaluated Anand Babu and admi5ed him. He once overheard a conversa$on his mother had with Anand Sir who advised that her son should learn English and Computers. And Anand Babu made a resolve to pursue that with a vengeance. To come to the level of the Shishu children who already spoke English fluently he took extra classes in English with the help of Bedna, a volunteer from Germany. He spent endless hours watching and observing hardware engineers who repaired
computers at Shishu to learn the nuances and func$ons of a computer and prac$ced what he learned which later made him the go-‐to-‐person at Shishu for many computer-‐related queries. Ironically during his college computer exam his mother met with an accident and passed away. Devastated, but undeterred Anand Babu wrote his computer exam on the same day with the only desire to fulfill his mother’s dream. Such was the brave heart’s determina$on to make it in this relentless and difficult world.
Anand Babu, now 24 years, is confident, smiling, living alone, but not without a dream. He scored a commendable 66% in his tenth grade and con$nued to pursue a degree in commerce (a dream his father harbored for his sister Swapna). His ul$mate goal is to become a Cost Accountant (ICWAI). He con$nues to stay in close connec$on with Shishu Mandir by volunteering his $me there doing camps and odd jobs. He even mentored a Shishu student and let him stay with him for a year.
Shishu for him is home. He feels that at every stage of his life and for major life decisions, Shishu Mandir always supported him. He par$cularly names Mama and Anand Sir and his wife Vimala Aunty, Rani madam, his favorite teacher, and all the volunteers who stood steadfast and strong by his side. He has no fear about his future, as long as Shishu Mandir is by his side, calls his small house a palace and is eternally grateful to his sponsor parents. Anand Babu fondly remembers his father’s last giI to him, a five-‐rupee note which he gave him on his birthday. Even today he holds on to it keeping his parents’ dream alive. He has also kept all the le5ers from his sponsor parents with love and ever las$ng gra$tude.
Anand Babu no longer focuses on his turbulent past; instead he is armed with a dream for a bright future, a desire to succeed and the gra$tude to give back what he gained in the past 15 years at Shishu Mandir. And as for Shishu Mandir, it’s one more child now with a possible future.
Sima Mehta
Shishu Mandir School
The school is a beehive of ac$vi$es! There is always something going on – a training session for the teachers, a workshop for the kids, theatre rehearsals, music and dance lessons, reading programmes… the list goes on. The current rage con$nues to be the unicycling sessions with David Foi. Our students are growing into experts at riding the unicycles and making forma$ons too. It has been a tremendous confidence-‐booster for them.
Seeing an office from the inside
It was exci$ng to receive an invita$on to visit Qualcomm. Mr Venugopal and Mr Swapneel of Qualcomm are longstanding corporate supporters of Shishu Mandir. And when they asked our teachers, students from classes 1 to 10 and Divya, who has been the point of contact between them and us, to
spend a day at their office, we were thrilled. At Qualcomm, the children and staff were taken around and everyone got to see the inside of a large office, how it operates, the labs and data centre and learn a li5le bit about how much research goes into their work in the mobile industry and in wireless charging of electrical cars. They were also shown videos of success stories of entrepreneurs, which were hugely mo$va$onal. As a token of thanks, the children put up a cultural show for the Qualcomm team which was also much appreciated by them.
Shishu Mandir Community College
The Community College offers voca$onal courses that aim at crea$ng employable youths. To strengthen this, we now have the accredita$on cer$ficate from the Na$onal Ins$tute of Open Schooling. In terms of credibility, it does make a difference to our role as a Community College.
Electrical DepartmentThis quarter the focus was on the electrical department, which has been redesigned with work boards, display units, a model of a house wiring, a hydraulic board and an auto/thermo windmill model. Each student will now learn to wire an
en$re home as part of their project. We are also thankful to Mr Jaypal, Director of GMR Varalakshmi Voca$onal Training Centre, who spent $me with us and offered guidance on the use of work boards and display units.
Thanks to the support of KPMG we are now able to offer all the children a cooked breakfast with a glass of milk every morning.
The Computer lab got an overhaul with N-‐compu$ng with 2 servers connected to 18 systems which will also lead to less power consump$on.
Shishu Mandir Home, Kithiganur, KR Puram PO, Bangalore 560 036 Ph -‐ 080-‐2561 0456
Shishu Mandir School, Hella Nagar, Virgo Nagar PO, Bangalore 560 049 Ph -‐ 080-‐3297 0700/ 080-‐ 2561 9368/ 093792 71391
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