This Awesome Initiative Is Giving Kids with Cancer All the Support They Need!

Cancer requires comprehensive care, and more so if you are a child. There are many precautions to be taken before, during, and after treatment. A child attending regular chemotherapy sessions has a compromised immunity. In such a situation, staying outdoors and using public transport is inviting danger.

Children belonging to economically backward families, and living in rural areas, often visit cities to seek treatment. However, the situation becomes a nightmare for them as they cannot afford accommodation and end up setting up temporary shelters outside the hospitals they consult.

The children, fighting cancer, often come to cities for treatment with their parents. Image Courtesy: St Jude India ChildCare Centres

Outside the Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel, Mumbai, there is often a crowd of patients. They seem weary and tired, camping out on the pavements. Nihal Kaviratne and his wife Shyama Kaviratne were troubled when they repeatedly came across this sight and decided to start the St Jude India ChildCare Centres, to help out these vulnerable children and their families.

The vision of St Jude India ChildCare Centres is clear—to help every child suffering from cancer, get the best chance of surviving the disease to live a full, healthy and happy life. It does this by providing free, holistic care, to children, irrespective of their economic status.

St Jude has multiple centres, in major cities in India. Providing the needy families and their children a place to stay, to begin with, the centre then goes on to provide support, in the following ways:

Children suffering from cancer have to undergo chemotherapy, and other treatments, which can take a toll on them. Image Courtesy: St Jude India ChildCare Centres.

1) Housing:
The children and their parents are given accommodation, with a place for their belongings, and access to a common kitchen—so that they can settle in comfortably. This is an important first step, as it takes these children and their families off the streets outside the hospitals.

2) Nutritional support:
When you are sick, home cooked food tastes the best, and this centre practices that belief! The families are given all the raw materials required, to cook wholesome, healthy food. Since there are people from all over India, at these centres, it helps to leave the cooking to them, so they have complete freedom over their dietary choices.

3) Transportation:
Not all St Jude India ChildCare Centres, are adjacent to the hospitals where the children receive treatment. In such cases, St Jude provides transport facilities, so children can go when they are called.

4) Counselling:
Cities are often intimidating, and many people do not necessarily have a friendly experience to recount. Counselling helps the children and parents cope with the confusion, fear and apprehensions that they might have. Putting their fears to rest, helps keep them in a positive and relaxed state of mind.

5) Education and Recreational Activities:
Since these children have left their home for the purpose of treatment, their education gets interrupted, and they miss out on school. Recognising this, St Jude India ChildCare Centres has an education team in place, which helps the children get up to speed. Children are also encouraged to pick up new skills.

6) Art and music-based therapy and Yoga:
Music therapy has been proven to improve the quality of life for cancer patients. It helps the children deal with several issues, like pain, anxiety, and fatigue. Yoga and exercise helps the children and the parents get rid of stress.

For the children and their families, this is a complete turnaround. The centre provides them with immense relief, as they don’t have to squat on the pavement, at the mercy of the elements, and get exposed to further infection. It also helps the, get over their initial apprehension of an urban environment.

The children bond and manage to have fun, despite fighting cancer. Image Courtesy: St Jude India Child Care Centre

Take the case of Ayan Khan, a quiet 14-year old who mostly kept to himself, after he came over to Mumbai, from Balrampur, UP.

The teenager, who was being treated for leukaemia, was reticent, despite efforts by the staff to draw him into the many activities happening. Ayan kept refusing, till one day, a boy from Gorakhpur, aged 12, came and changed everything. Aditya Rathaur came to be treated for a malignant brain tumour. A slightly outgoing and gregarious character, he was able to draw Ayan out of his shell.

Seeing its success, the Government of Telangana and Tata Trusts recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding, to deliver high-quality, affordable cancer care.

Tata Memorial Centre, has a close relationship with St Jude India ChildCare Centres, as the centre takes care of children who are taking treatment at the Tata hospitals. Hence, as per an agreement, St Jude will set up operations in Guwahati.

Looking to the future, the initiative aims to set up more centres in Mumbai itself, to handle the influx of children coming for treatment. There are many little hands that need help, and St Jude wishes to make sure the children are not left wanting for anything while undergoing cancer treatment.

---

Childhood is a time to run, enjoy and soak up myriad experiences, but children battling cancer, undergo an extremely harrowing time and the lack of support only adds to the anxiety.

Now, thanks to St Jude India ChildCare Centres, and the comprehensive and holistic help provided, these children have a place to stay, make friends, and beat the cancer battle!

Artical Source : the better india

Read More

IPS Officer’s Idea Has Inspired 42000 Youngsters To Fight Crime And Terrorism

According to crime data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Maharashtra has the second highest number of juveniles in conflict with the law in the country. Distressing as it may sound, the state also has a high incidence of radicalization among young people.

With overwhelming data supporting the fact that a large chunk of Maharashtra’s youth was moving towards a violent direction, a concerned state police has been working to address this issue. A community model has been designed and implemented in schools and colleges to foster greater interaction between the police force and students.

But the top-down nature of this conventional model has ensured that, more often than not, the attempts have been in vain — the students listen to the words of the police officer but later dismiss what they have heard.

The good news is that a positive change is slowly but steadily rolling in. And this is transformation is happening due to the efforts of people like IPS officer Harssh A Poddar.

The ASP Malegaon’s unique initiative has created 42,000 young leaders against crime and terror in the last three years!

“Blend saffron, white and green on the palette and you get khaki”, says IPS officer Harssh Poddar.

Photo Source

A law graduate from National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) in Kolkata, Harssh has a tall list of notable achievements under his belt. A winner of the prestigious Chevening Scholarship (a scholarship awarded by the UK government to outstanding students with leadership potential), he has done his masters in International and Constitutional Law from Balliol College of the University of Oxford.

Following this, Harssh joined work as a corporate lawyer with Clifford Chance in London before returning to India to pursue something much closer to his heart.

“I bid goodbye to London in 2010 because I wanted to be a civil servant,” he told The Times of India. “I wanted to be a part of policy-making in India.”

And Harssh fulfilled his dream when he aced the UPSC examination not once but twice. The first time he made it into Indian Revenue Service (IRS) and the second time, in 2013, he secured the rank of 361 to opt for Indian Police Service (IPS).

IPS Officer Harsh Poddar

Photo Source

During his training at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Harssh did a project that involved conducting a workshop for blind children. What made this workshop’s format different from conventional ones was that the children were divided into small groups and asked to draft laws for the differently abled (instead of just listening to lectures on rights and awareness).

Harssh observed that with assistance and encouragement provided by IPS probationers, the children could be induced to examine the subject deeply and act as their own agencies. This learning remained with him even as he was deputed on his first posting in Maharashtra police.

And the same thought struck Harssh a couple of years later when he was asked by Maharashtra’s DGP to suggest innovative policies that would effectively tackle juvenile delinquency in the state. His idea was accepted and thus began the Youth Parliament Championship.

Harssh Poddar being felicitated by the Maharashtra CM for his outstanding work.

Photo Source

Conceptualised and coordinated by Harssh (the then-ASP of Karveer), this initiative’s core aim was to break the strong linkage between alienation and crime by giving the youth a platform to take action against anti-social tendencies.

Under the pro-active officer’s able guidance, pilot projects were started in Aurangabad’s Nath Valley School (NVS) and Aurangabad Police Public School (APPS). The selected students were divided into teams of three and given a number of topics related to crime (such as sexual offences, terrorism, naxalism, corruption, financial fraud etc).

Each team was also given the part of a particular stakeholder (like the government, the police department and the civic society) and a speaker from each was chosen to speak about their role in crime prevention. Each team would also be asked to come up with solutions pertaining to the part they were playing.

When an impact assessment was conducted, it was clear that this bottom-up approach had led to growing awareness among the students about the issues they had discussed. More significantly, it was noticed that the students (particularly those from the lower and middle-income groups) were acting as crucial agents of awareness for their family and neighbours.

In fact, a Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) — a non-intrusive mean of testing the potential of an individual to veer towards crime or radicalization — designed by psychology students of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University (BAMU) showed a marked reduction in the potential for criminal behavious among the participants.

Harssh Poddar with Akshay Kumar during a Youth Parliament event.

Photo Sourcec

Encouraged by the success of Harssh’s idea, Maharashtra police began replicating the project in other districts. Ever since, this simple yet powerful idea has reached out to nearly 42000 youngsters, ensuring that they don’t go down the path of violence.

Interestingly, this is not the only reason for the immense respect Harssh commands in the inner circles of Maharahtra police. The people-centric officer has also been streamlining the management of rural police stations and getting them ISO certified with infrastructure funds from village panchayats.

He has also launched an innovative project, Udaan, that provides free coaching for entrance exams and career counselling to local students.

Photo Source

More recently, when violence erupted in several cities of Maharashtra over the Bhima-Koregaon issue, Malegaon remained peaceful thanks to the efforts of Harssh and his hardworking team.

What makes this fact especially remarkable is that fact that Malegaon has a long history of violent strife, bomb blasts and communal disturbance. Located in Nashik district, the city also has sizeable populations of Dalits, Muslims and Hindus. As such, it presents a formidable challenge to law enforcement agencies.

Cognizant of these facts, Harssh’s first steps on taking charge was reinforcing intelligence networks and preparing police stations for social disturbances that may erupt suddenly. This included surprise riot-control drills, timely maintenance of equipment, and creation of a community network that would provide timely information to the police force.

To ensure that irrefutable evidence was collected to identify and book unruly elements who incited the public, Harssh also got CCTV cameras installed on a series of police vans.

However, while his administrative brilliance makes him popular in the official circles, its the IPS officer’s instinctive thoughtfulness that endears him deeply to the common man.

On Children’s Day, Malegaon police officers led by Harssh took over 200 children from orphanages and juvenile homes (many of them rescued child labourers) to the local fair!

Photo Source

By channelising the energy of Maharashta’s youth in a positive direction, he has not only given the state’s fight against crime a big boost, Harssh Poddar has also inspired many officers across the country to do the same. Here’s wishing this dynamic IPS officer all the very best in all his endeavours.

Article source : 

Read More

Bengaluru’s Helmetless Cops to Be Fined Rs 100 From February 2018

No more will Bengaluru’s cops be seen donning their trademark half-helmets.

In addition to cracking down civilians driving without helmets, the Bengaluru traffic police have decided to strike down heavily on uniformed cops travelling helmetless or with non-certified helmets from next month.

Representational Image only. Source: (L) – Facebook / (R) – Facebook

Starting February 2018, the city traffic police will send out teams to conduct surprise checks at police stations and other places where police forces are deployed to ensure that all of them use helmets that bear the ISI mark, reported the Times of India.

Speaking to the publication, additional commissioner of police (traffic) R Hitendra, emphasised how the road safety drive to promote helmets must kickstart with police officers themselves.

“On the morning of February 1, traffic police will start checking police officers across the city. Apart from stopping the police on two-wheelers, our personnel will visit police stations and other workplaces to ensure that our colleagues have helmets certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards. Policemen will have to pay a fine if they are found using helmets without ISI mark,” he said.

The last day for the general public as well as cops to buy a helmet with the ISI mark is January 31 said city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar.

This move has come into effect following the police department’s announcements to make certified helmets by the Bureau of Indian Standards mandatory for two-wheeler riders as well as their pillions.

The initiative aims to phase out the use of helmets that do not cover or protect the head of the rider fully. Officers and civilians caught in violation of the helmet rule will be fined Rs 100.

Until now, most officers have admitted to using locally-sourced khaki or white helmets with the police logo on the front, which lacked the ISI mark. The government too until now, supplied these cops riot helmets which are used while controlling mobs or violent protests.

Though the traffic police department’s move has been lauded by most officials as a welcome move, there are concerns about the month-end deadline.

“We need more time to buy a proper helmet as helmets with ISI mark are in huge demand now, and it might affect the supply,” an officer told TOI.

Source: The Better India

Read More

The Lokshala

it’s 9:30 am, and a Shaishav staff member is flying down the streets of the Kumbarwada slum on their bike as I grab onto the seat behind them.

We were on our way to catch the second half of a Lokshala session.  Lokshala is an educational initiative by Shaishav meant to track the progress of non-school going children and integrate them back into the public school system.

There many theories about what affects access to quality education. I believe three aspects dictate the quality of education: money, time and willpower.

Money

Picture for representation only. Source: Pixabay

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy a good education, arguably the surest way to a good life. The Right to Education Act of 2010 was meant to equalize educational access.  However, public education infrastructure has not caught up to the number of children being enrolled, resulting in overcrowding and children being pushed out from lack of attention.

Indian parents often supplement their children’s education with after-school tuition. But with no method to compare the quality of private tutoring in slums, parents depend on hearsay and their financial constraints when choosing a school.

Although the RTE act has passed, Shaishav saw that public schools would need a lot more support before education was equalized for all children.  In the meantime, some intervention would be needed to curb the private tuition market in slums.

Thus, the idea of Lokshala, a community education centre which prepares children of all levels for reentry into formal education was born.

Other than a small fee, which is at most Rs 100 and meant as a symbolic investment from the parents as a commitment to their children’s education, financial barriers are removed at Lokshala.

For those who can’t pay, even the entry fee is waived.  Every child is given the most innovative educational methods possible, developed by the Shaishav team with past Fellows, NGOs and local educational stakeholders assisting as well.

Through the hard work of Shaishav’s facilitators and local community mobilizers, parents were slowly convinced that an education which cost less could, in fact, be of better quality and that the loss of their child’s wages would be worth it in the long run.

The Lokshala I am visiting is held in a room within a private home.  The medium sized space is adorned with colourful posters explaining the alphabet, pictures of Indian heroes and the crafts from past classes.

The utter joy of the children’s faces as they join the Lokshala teacher in a learning rhyme makes it hard to imagine an environment that could be the exact opposite.

Shaishav caseworkers recount children avoiding the bathroom for fear of losing their place in a crowded classroom or being subject to corporal punishment while attending private tuition within slums.

Time

Lokshala Session. Photo Credit: Adrian Fisk.

Time is an interesting concept. It can signify a child’s age or the amount of time they have in a day to devote to learning. In order to circumvent the problem of overcrowding, public schools hold four to five hour morning sessions for boys and a four hour afternoon sessions for girls, filling the 45-hour workweek required of teachers.

Lokshala supplements these lessons by holding morning sessions and afternoon sessions for children to attend before or after their formal educational classes.  This type of schedule also makes it flexible for children who are still unable to pursue a full-time education due to labour or familial pressures.

Watching how Lokshala utilizes this precious time is inspiring.

If we each had all the time in the world, we could learn concepts as equally as the next person. Shaishav recognises that how long each child takes to master a concept is unique to them, and a longer learning time does not mean the child is hopeless.

Children are split into groups according to their learning levels, not age, and patiently learn at the pace of their peers.  It is partly because Lokshala teachers are skilled at managing time and juggling several groups of students that children keep coming back.

The overwhelming sentiment was that the spirit of childhood should be incorporated into each lesson with games and songs.  That a child shouldn’t look back and see time spent learning as an experience that didn’t make that their childhood more joyful.

Willpower

Picture for representation only. Source: Pixabay

Growing up, I thought talent was the last aspect of the trio, not willpower.  I believed our performance would be maxed out by a certain amount of talent or IQ allotted to us at birth. Shaishav works against this notion, pushing its educational philosophy so that every child has a chance to have their ‘ah-ha!’ moment.

There is no such thing as ‘can’t’ at Lokshala, only why and how, fitting for a country known for its jugaad.

Lokshala teachers constantly consider why a child is at a certain achievement level and how to bring them to the next plateau.

The search for knowledge is not tied to our IQ because as long as we seek, we will try.  Lokshala teachers are filled with stories of students overcoming all odds to return to school, and proving talent needs willpower.

Students possess an amazing amount of willpower to begin with and Lokshala tries hard to keep the momentum going by creating as joyful and encouraging of an environment as possible.

The Perfect Balance

Picture for representation only. Source: Pixabay

So how do these factors influence each other and affect Lokshala children? Is there a perfect balance? Given the complex inner lives of the children, it is hard to pin down a definitive combination, so I tried to think of these concepts within the context of Lokshala.

There are heaps and heaps of willpower, stemming partially from the healthy learning environment and the natural enthusiasm of the children.

Money holds little influence as no child is turned down due to inability to pay.  The remaining scarce factor seems to be time.

Although no child in Lokshala is rushed, it is hard not wish for more time observing how they learn and imagining new ways of teaching them.  But then isn’t time is an elusive factor for students of all ages?

All in all, it feels like Lokshala is slowly finding a balance to preserve both quality and access.

As the Lokshala lesson wraps up, students press palms in the air with each other and exclaim “de talli”! which roughly translates to high five.

Not a single person leaves without this high spirited gesture with each child or adult present.

In this way, new friendships are created among newcomers while old friendships are further bonded. This simple, lovely gesture quickly makes feel me a part of the Shaishav family, much like it must have for the new children joining Shaishav. Big changes start with small gestures.  Over the next 10 months,  I look forward to seeing how Shaishav achieves its mission of being child right’s organization emphasizing a child participatory model.

References:
Dang, Hai-Anh and Rogers, F. Halsey, How to Interpret the Growing Phenomenon of Private Tutoring: Human Capital Deepening, Inequality Increasing, or Waste of Resources? (February 1, 2008). World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Series, Vol. , pp. – 2008. Available at SSRN

Jugaad means a creative solution to a complex or unyielding problem.  The equivalent of a “hack” or “macgyver” in English.

(Written by Subhashanmugavel)

Source: The Better India

Read More

This Rajasthan Village’s Talented Cooks Work For India’s Millionaires!

Were it not for its interesting culinary connection with Indian celebrities, Menar would be a relatively unremarkable village. Located about 30 kms away from Rajasthan’s Udaipur, this dusty and nondescript village has an illustrious history of producing talented cooks.

From Dhirubhai Ambani and the Hinduja brothers to Lata Mangeshkar and Juhi Chawla, Menaria chefs (this is how people from Menar identify themselves) have long handled the kitchens of some of India’s biggest millionaires and celebrities.

Photo Source

This list also includes wealthy Indian expats settled across the world. In fact, in England alone, there are more than half a dozen Menaria cooks who serve as head chefs in prominent Indian households.

Take for instance, 28-year-old Yashwant Menaria who manages the London kitchens of Hinduja brothers — S P Hinduja and G P Hinduja.  At the young age of 14, he took the contract of running the canteen of the multinational company near his village and never looked back.

After working in Mumbai for more than a decade, a tenure which included a term in the kitchens of Ashok P Hinduja, the third Hinduja brother, he migrated to London. His successful journey finds resonance in the stories of several other Menaria cooks serving not just in London, but in Antwerp, Hong Kong, Nairobi, Dubai, Muscat, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and more.

Another Menaria cook with an interesting story is Poonamchand Aklingdasot. The now-retired Aklingdasot used to cook for Lata Mangeshkar’s family before he joined the Mumbai household of Dhirubhai Ambani in 1997.

He worked here for a decade, baking millet and wheat rotis, steamed khaman dhoklas, pohe, samosas and kachoris for the Ambani family, before he retired in 2007. The elderly cook now spends his days accompanying his family’s cattle on their grazing expeditions.

Interestingly, Aklingdasot has never done a professional course in cooking.

A school dropout, he learned the necessary culinary skills from his seniors, peers and recipe books of the late Tarla Dalal — a famous Indian chef, cookbook author and host of cooking shows, Dalal was renowned for her Gujarati recipes in particular.

Representative Image

Photo Source

Many of Aklingdasot’s seniors in the village have also never attended a cooking course. Yet they have been preparing dishes, from Mexican and Italian to Chinese and Continental, for several decades. In fact, the wife of late Bhairulal Rupjot (the Menaria cook who served in the Ambani household before Aklingdasot) still receives a monthly pension.

Other than impressive six-figure salaries (often in addition to free boarding, lodging and air travel!), the culinary expertise of Menar’s residents has also contributed to the development of the village.

Vijay Lal Dahot worked for Maghanmal Jethanand Pancholia, one of Dubai’s oldest Indian expatriates, for nearly 15 years. When Dahot retired, Pancholia decided to give his cook a retirement gift of much greater significance than just a monthly pension.

The highly respected businessman, who is credited with having introduced electricity to Dubai in 1957, spent over Rs 1.42 crore to construct a 100-bed hospital, a secondary school and a community centre in Menar. The school and the hospital are managed by the Overseas Indian Education Trust, of which Dahot is a member, while the community centre is managed by the village committee.

The village’s preferred profession also inspired Prabhulal R. Joshi (a resident of Menar) to partner with Gujarati trader Jitendra Shah and float his hospitality company in 1987 that would help local cooks find employment in good homes. Called Hina Tours and Travels, the firm has since trained hundreds of Menaria cooks and placed them in well-paying jobs.

Interestingly, in the recent months, Menar has been in the news for setting an example in community-driven conservation.

A lake in Menar

Photo Source

To ensure a healthy eco-system for the birds visiting the village’s many lakes, the villagers have stopped using water from these lakes for irrigation. Furthermore, fishing has been prohibited and regular weeding is done to get rid of water hyacinth overgrowth.

The village has also set up a group of volunteers, called Pakshi Mitras (friends of birds), who ensure a safe stay for the winged visitors to its surrounding wetlands. From rescuing injured birds to conducting regular anti-poaching patrols, these efforts have led to a marked increase in the number of both migratory birds and tourists visiting this little-known village!

Read More