Supporting Vulnerable Women and Children in Kolkata, India

On a mission to deliver emergency food rations to one very needy family and two very vulnerable elderly women. This was a difficult day. Maya First we went to Maya’s home – a shelter down a dark alley between the busy road and the sewage canal. Maya has no toilet facilities, no running water and no means of support other than begging and rag picking. She says she thinks she is about 75. Her husband died just four months ago. She has three daughters but they have their own families and she doesn’t see them - one occasionally visits and give her a hundred rupees or so. She used to do embroidery but her eyes are too weak now. She showed us her glasses which, she said, no longer work. Loki Then we crossed the road to see Loki. She is over 80 and lives in a space behind a larger building. We clambered through the dark over a high step and slippery mud to reach her. To collect water or use a toilet she has to cross the road. We asked if she has a ration card...

Alisha made a card I don’t know where to begin. I have been visiting Tiljala SHED for 5 years and thought I couldn’t be surprised by anything. Yesterday I was invited to attend school. Local children from the Park Circus Railway Squatters (mostly the children of ragpickers) attend our community centre 5 days a week. This group attends government schools in the afternoon so their supplementary/remedial classes are in the morning. Well – I assumed this was mostly a babysitting exercise. Games, songs and a safe place whilst parents are working. But no. It was a Bengali lesson when I arrived. 26 children lined up according to their school class. The year ones at the front and 5s at the back. Mehnaz the teacher, a girl from the community herself and a qualified teacher, was handling all groups at once. Letter recognition for the year 1s and 2s up to full story telling for the 5s. Every child engaged and working. This is skilled teaching and she was clearly fully in command. We had a ...

Back in Kolkata at last! Yesterday  I went to visit some of our beneficiaries - redoubtable women from the Topsia Squatter camp who are making a success out of lives lived perched over a sewage canal. With my old friend Rizia Rehana at home in better days. Rehana in her godown Rehana yesterday - in despair Rehana is one of our star performers: with a tiny loan of about £200 she bought a rickshaw, then 9 more. Sold them all and bought a godown (warehouse) from which she deals in waste, selling on the rubbish collected by ragpickers. All was going well and I expected to be congratulating her. But when she arrived it was clear all was not well. She is sick: thin and pale. She is also pregnant and bleeding constantly. The doctor has told her she must be admitted to hospital immediately - but she doesn’t know who will look after her children. As the conversation proceeds it transpires that the husband has run off with another woman taking the contents of th...

Ayesha "I aspire to open my own parlour one day" Ayesha is 32 and, unusually in communities like the Topsia slum where she lives, she is unmarried. Instead, her family depends on her to supplement their tiny income. Seven of them have to live on just Rs4000   (£44) per month. Ayesha is a graduate from the Tuilajal SHED “Saloni” Beauty Training Parlour.    It is clear from the girls’ experiences that the beauty industry is highly exploitative expecting 9 or 10 hour working days for just £20 or £25 a month.   She told us her story: “Because of financial problems I could not complete my education. When I finished the beauty training course, I searched for a job in a parlour and went to around ten salons for interviews but I decided not to work in any of them as the pay and growth was minimal and long working hours. So, I started freelancing and with some small parlour kits I arranged to buy from my own pocket and now I do freelancing and have a handful of cli...

Please empower a young woman today for the price of a visit to the hairdresser... Tabassum, age 20, lives with her family in a single room in Kolkata’s Tiljala slum. Her father supports his family of 4 on Rs4000 (£44 or USD57) per month. She has recently qualified in hair and beauty therapy at the iSalon, NGO  Tiljala SHED ’s tiny Beauty Training Salon. “Because of my father’s low income I left education early. When I came to know from one of my friends, that a free course i s being offered at this place, I immediately visited the parlour and decided to join. After joining, I was confident that this skill will surely help me out of poverty. After completion of course I applied to many salons but they offered maximum 2500 per month for 9-10 hour days. Then, I consulted with the trainer who helped me and now I have 8 clients and earn close to Rs.2000 per month. I have requested the trainer to start more advanced courses which has a demand in the market and which will help us...

Rina lives in Topsia Canalside Squatter Community where 710 families live in illegal makeshift shelters beside a stinking open sewer.   Rina is 13 years old.  She is a member of Tiljala SHED's newly formed girls' football squad. Her father is a rickshaw puller who drinks and smokes most of his earnings.  Her mother supplements the family income by working as a domestic servant.  She earns just Rs1600 (£20 or $35) a month. Rina and her three siblings are malnourished and often go hungry. Rina’s mother wants more for her children: she ensures they attend school as she knows that education is their best hope for the future.  Rina also attends evening classes at Tiljala SHED’s community centre in Topsia. Beside the homework support and computer classes, Tiljala SHED is promoting sports for all the youngsters. We have no sports ground, no budget and no coaches – but we do have a wonderful crowd of 22 enthusiastic girls who want to play. And they mad...

Murshida, resident of Topsia canalside squatter camp is 18 years old. She has just completed her final school exams. Her father is a tuktuk driver who earns about £2.50 (Rs200) a day.  Most girls in this community marry at 12 or 13 years old but Murshida and Tiljala SHED's staff persuaded her parents to let her continue her education.  Murshida has attended Tiljala SHED's classes since she was small and aspires now to become a teacher. She shows every sign of accomplishing her ambition. So how does it worK? How does a child born in a shelter beside a railway line in Kolkata escape the cycle of poverty?   With illiterate parents, mother a rag picker, father a rickshaw wallah and often too drunk to work, both repeating the cycle of 2 or 3 generations since the family escaped starvation as landless rural poor by moving to the big city for a better life?   How can an anxious mother with 6 or 8 mouths to feed every day even think beyond the immediate daily i...