 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
OSI - India |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Pune The Children - Photos - Our Personnel - The Community - Geography
In "Janata
Vasahat," an impoverished slum in Pune in central India, OSI sponsorship
provides a better present and a more promising future for girls,
with a focus
on fostering their education to improve their future prospects and
remove them from the cycle of abuse and neglect In the "Janata
Vasahat" slum of Pune,
as in many parts of India, girls and young women from the lowest levels of
society have little or no educational or vocational opportunities.
Financial straits force children out of school and into labor at an early age, and their
lack of prospects means that girls are married prematurely, often without
choice, becoming virtual slaves to their circumstances, if not to their
new family. Severe abuse, bride-burning, female infanticide, and
suicide are too often the end-result for these girls who in age are
still children. And in the best cases, their poverty and lack of
education yet provides no prospects, and assures the cycle of neglect will
continue.
OSI sponsorship has taken Minal's concept a
quantum-leap forward by providing a consistent and substantial means of
support for many individual girls in the community.
With a focus on education, OSI-Pune works directly with the children and
their families to keep the younger children in school, to re-enroll the
older children, or to provide outside tutoring for those not qualified for
school enrollment, so that they may take the proficiency exam and earn a
diploma. OSI-Pune attempts to address every barrier, from
providing financial support to free a child from labor so that she can focus
on education, to providing parental assistance for the many children with
single-parents, to group and individual classes, counseling, and tutoring
to help the children's schoolwork as well as to teach general life skills and to foster their self-esteem and general happiness level.
In addition to the educational focus, OSI sponsorship also provides for
the child's other needs, physical and emotional, -hygiene, clothing,
medical, etc., and the child's communication with their sponsor assures
that they feel truly cared about individually.
Photos
(click for larger image)
Most of the smiling OSI-Pune children...
Most of our girls love to wear costume and perform traditional
dances
Scene from the alleys
of Janata Vasahat...
Our happy girls...
A sliver of Janata Vasahat slum as seen from the top of Parvati
hill, with part of Pune city in the background...
With Parvati
Hill/Temple in the background...
One of the better,
"permanent" homes in Janata Vasahat...
Entering Janata Vasahat...
Events - Special
events and excursions provided for our Pune children:
Lynette's Blog - Read Lynette's impressions of ideo of CCC's grand excursion for our girls... Thanks also to the Edina Community Lutheran Church Mission Endowment Fund and the Lutheran Community Foundation for their August 2009 grant of $500 towards the operation of our Pune program!Janata Vasahat is an impoverished slum community located on the slopes of Parvati, -a prominent hill in Pune crowned with an ancient temple. It is an extensive, sprawling community of shanties, inhabited mostly by migrants from drought-prone rural areas of Maharashtra and Karnataka states.The "original" or "legal" homes are very simple masonry, tin-roofed constructions of one or two rooms, registered with the Pune Municipality, and provided with a water tap, electricity, and a "ration card" (which provides food grains at a concession rate). However, a large number of the homes in Janata Vasahat are "illegal", simple constructions of tin or other materials, prone to conflicts with the municipality, and without the infrastructure benefits of the "legal" homes. This is the result of a growing number of migrants to the community, destitute of the means for legal housing. The community has public toilets, though these are highly inadequate in number. Most men in the community work in simple skilled jobs or as labourers, while women work mostly as domestic servants. Employment/income is unstable and minimal, with family incomes typically ranging between US $20 - US $120 /month. Young children attend the government elementary school 2-3km from Janata Vasahat. Beyond elementary school, schools for the higher grades are quite distant, and this too is a need/expense that OSI sponsorship provides for. Janata Vasahat has it's own charity-run hospital as well as private physicians. There are various charities working within the community (HIV/AIDS awareness, drug/alcohol rehabilitation, etc.). Conversely, desperation of many residents means that there are also some anti-social elements in Janata Vasahat, -gang fighting, gambling, production/selling of black-market liquor, domestic violence, early marriage, child labour, etc. Pune (pronounced poo-na) is located about 160 km southeast of Mumbai (Bombay), in Maharashtra state. With a population of over 5 million, Pune is the 8th most populous city in India. Pune's nine universities and many more academic institutes provide an education that feeds the city's growing industrial and IT sectors. Pune is important culturally as well, as the recognized center of Murathi, the primary language in the region. Many temples and structures outline Pune's important historical role, from ancient times to British Raj to the struggle for Indian independence. Pune is a hilly city, and at an elevation of 560 meters the climate is mild.
Other OSI Program Site Pages: |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Home About OSI Sponsor a Child Sponsor a Program Other Ways to Help Log-In Contact Us |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Since
1993, a local resident of Pune, Ms. Minal, has worked
tirelessly to change the plight of girls and young women in the Pune
slums. With minimal funding or support, Minal
has been inexhaustible in her efforts to engage volunteers and resources
to provide counseling, education & tutoring, vocational training, legal
assistance, and general advocacy for girls in the Pune slums, to improve
their prospects and alter their destinies.
