Tiljala SHED’s 12 year old car seriously needs to be replaced
Tiljala SHED’s faithful workhorse – a grey Maruti Suzuki Eeco – is almost beyond use. We desperately need to find a replacement.
Bought in 2008 this 7 seater van has been essential to all of Tiljala SHED’s activities. But right now it is absolutely central: since India’s lockdown began, this vehicle has enabled Tiljala SHED to deliver 5650 food parcels. It has collected sacks of rice, flour, onions and daal from the cash and carry. Delivered the supplies to our distribution centres and carried staff to and from the field.
But the car is falling apart. There are great holes in the bodywork – large enough for rats to move in overnight.
So we desperately need to find a new car so that we can continue to help the 10s of 1000s of vulnerable men, women and children who depend on Tiljala SHED to deliver food rations to save them from starvation.
It is Ramadan, the temperature is in the 30s and this little team has distributed emergency food parcels to 1650 families (almost 10,000 people) over the last month. The transportation, storage, packaging, and distribution were all handled by this small group under the most challenging circumstances.
Supplies and funds were made available by generous donors. But the transportation, storage, packaging, and distribution were all handled by this small group under the most challenging circumstances. They had to manage the crowds, keep everyone at a safe distance, assess their needs and keep detailed records. And all the while, more and more hungry and desperate people are asking for help. 5000 chits have been posted through Shafkat’s postbox – every single chit representing the desperate need of another hungry family. Huge numbers of people also come in person to ask for help. The team are doing everything they can – and all the while they are fasting, unable to eat or drink during the heat of the day and even at Iftar they continue to work, breaking their fast with one another rather than at home with their families.
Keeping records
So please spare a thought today for all NGO workers, and volunteers, working under difficult conditions, emotionally and physically exhausted in the front line.
Funds are still desperately needed. India’s lockdown has been extended to 17th May for now, but the hardship for these people will go on much longer.
To support Tiljala SHED and enable this tough little organisation to weather the storm, to be able to pay its staff and look after its volunteers, please donate here https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/12619
I was last in Kolkata in January. One woman who has become a friend over the years is Razia. She lives with her disabled husband and 3 children in a shelter beside the Topsia nullah (a stinking open sewer or canal). She is illiterate and terribly poor but determined to make a better life for herself and her family. Her daughter has just taken her class 10 exams and has great ambitions to continue her education. I always drop in to see Razia when I’m in Topsia and if don’t find her, she’ll come and find me. It’s an odd sort of friendship but one I value. She is the human face of Tiljala SHED’s work. So I was very shocked to be send some footage of a delegation from Topsia, who had come to visit Shafkat at home to explain how desperate the community is for food. There was Razia. I shouldn’t be surprised – she is a community leader in the Topsia canalside squatters and would absolutely stand up for her neighbours.
The Indian Government announced an immediate 21-day lock down on 24th March 2020, when there were only 500 reported cases of the disease in a population of 1.3 billion. It was hailed as “early, far-sighted and courageous … better than waiting for another 3 or 4 weeks” by WHO’s David Nabarro on April 3rd. An Oxford University research group counted India’s lockdown as the most stringent in the world, scoring it 100 out of 100 on their tracker. It remains too early to know how successful India’s lock down has been in combating the pandemic.
So, whilst the virus is a distant though very real fear, the immediate issue for India’s most vulnerable communities is hunger. I have been receiving first-hand news from Shafkat at Tiljala SHED and from other staff members and volunteers.The lockdown means that all Tiljala SHED’s programmes have been suspended. The office is closed and the majority of staff are staying at home. The 600 children we normally bring into our centres every day are at home in their huts with their parents. These parents, rag pickers, maidservants, daily labourers, rickshaw wallahs, factory workers, piece workers, are all without work. Without a day’s work there is no day’s pay and therefore no food. In desperation, hundreds of people are coming to Tiljala SHED to ask for help. Over the years we have run an emergency food programme to help out a few of the most vulnerable families of all. But our main programmes have always been about education and empowerment – helping the poorest to lift themselves out of poverty. But in a time of crisis like this lock down, Tiljala SHED becomes a refuge for the desperate and relief of hunger has become our main concern.
We were hugely helped last week by a delivery of food rations from Kolkata Gives Foundation. Our staff (the ones who live in the community) distributed coupons to the neediest and invited them to come and collect bags of rice, daal, oil, onions and potatoes. 600 families received enough to last them a week. But it isn’t enough. We don’t know if there will be any more such deliveries.The food distribution is difficult because of the need for social distancing and the very real risk of the coronavirus spreading dramatically in these very densely populated areas. Our staff and volunteers are putting themselves in the way of harm not only from the virus but also from the crowds of hungry and desperate people. Shafkat reports that he has had to call in the police on a number of occasions to calm things down. We are fortunate that he has a friend in the police force who has promised to send in support whenever it is needed.
Many agencies are making use of the fact that even the poorest of the poor in India often have bank accounts – thanks to an earlier government initiative to allow even the poorest to open zero balance bank accounts. And this is how we hope to support our beneficiaries over the next few weeks. Shafkat reckons that a cash transfer of about Rs1500 (about £17) per household of 6 people per month, should help get them through this crisis. It falls well short of what a family would normally eat but it will certainly help. For those who don’t have bank accounts we will continue to distribute rations, but individually. We estimate there may be as many as 3000 families in need and we cannot know how long this will last. I have been using various channels to appeal for help. I hope this hasn’t caused any confusion – especially as I am going to add another!
About my Fundraising Over the past 5 years I have been raising funds for Tiljala SHED exclusively through GlobalGiving, a US based crowdfunding platform. It has been highly effective and has led to donations from well beyond my own network. However, since last July GlobalGiving has been unable to remit funds to any of its Indian partners owing to a problem with the Home Ministry in Delhi. This means that funds have been accumulating in the US until such time as another route has been found.
In order to provide a “fiscal sponsor” to act as a conduit for Global Giving funds, I have set up a new UK charitable trust, The ShantyTrust. This trust is principally a partner to Tiljala SHED – and its most important function to start with is to remit $20,000 of stuck funds. I am delighted that those funds have arrived and will be in India as soon as possible. All future funds raised through Global Giving will now come to Shanty Trust on behalf of Tiljala SHED. I am also looking forward to raising funds directly for Shanty Trust as this gives more flexibility in terms of timing and also the purpose of the funds.
Meanwhile, Tiljala SHED was recently invited to join GiveIndia, India’s foremost crowdfunding platform. This is great news as we can raise funds in Indian rupees, US dollars and GB pounds on the same platform. I have been promoting this on Facebook recently.In addition to this Global Giving enables me to create appeals so if you have been a supporter at any time through Global Giving you may have received an appeal from me last week.Both these two campaigns are going very well and I thank you all for such swift and generous response. I am very pleased that Tiljala SHED will be receiving generous funds from supporters all over the world.
Thank you very much If you’d like to make a donation through one of these platforms, you’ll find the details below. All donations, however delivered, will go to Tiljala SHED’s COVID19 Emergency Fund.
How to Donate
We can accept tax efficient donations in USD, INR and GBP though the GiveIndia link.
The trustees very pleased to announce the establishment of a new UK registered charitable trust dedicated to supporting Tiljala SHED and other organisations committed to the relief of poverty in India and around the world.
The Shanty Trust is U.K registered Charitable Trust (Registration No. 1188154) raising funds to support the work of partner organization TILJALA SHED which works with the rag pickers and ultra-poor of central Kolkata, India. The Shanty Trust’s mission is to relieve poverty through the empowerment of women and the protection and education of children.
The Shanty Trust was founded by Jane Manson in December 2019 and registered as charity no 1188154 with the UK Charity Commission in January 2020. Other trustees are Jane’s sister, Emma Boot, Maggie Cassidy, Charlie (Chantal) McMurdie and Helen Bratchell.
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 made quite an impression at a recent tournament …. Just before the World Cup final kicked off on Sunday, another tournament got underway in Kolkata: the Kolkata Gives five-a-side inaugural GirlRising Football Championship. And for those participants, vulnerable girls like Rina from across Kolkata, participation in this sport and this tournament can be life changing.
‘The organisers…were appreciative of the efforts of Tiljala SHED, the NGO that has just started practising football and still doesn’t have a coach “The girls from Tiljala SHED lost all three of their matches but they played their hearts out. They kept practising even during the break” ‘
This article was published on Monday in Kolkata’s Telegraph newspaper. But look at the article on the left. Shockingly over 40% of girls in West Bengal are married off under the age of 18. Girls routinely drop out of education at puberty and are then married off as young as 14. Babies then follow, one after the other, leading to poverty, poor health, extreme stress, and, tragically, domestic violence and abandonment. These illiterate girls have very little power to change their lives. Whilst we are working hard (and successfully) to give these married women & girls a second chance through business training and microloans, we are also working hard to keep their daughters safe and to help them remain in education and delay marriage. Our greatest supporters for the young girls are their mothers – they do not want their daughters to suffer the same fate.
So how does football come into this? The juxtaposition of these two articles is no accident. The Kolkata Telegraph publishes hundreds of stories every year showing how sport is a redemptive force amongst impoverished and vulnerable young people, how sport transcends India’s highly stratified society. Paul Walsh’s Khelo Rugby and his formidable team, the Jungle Crows, have been transforming the lives of the rural poor for many years. Future Hope takes care of Kolkata’s street children –and at the heart of their rehabilitation lies sport. Rugby, football, hockey, athletics bring together young people rich and poor, from NGOs and private schools alike. Imagine how it feels to be part of a team trouncing the private school softies when you were born to believe you were nothing.
So it is for these girls. Or so it should be… when they have proper football boots, a coach, somewhere to train.
Tiljala SHED aims to keep all the children in the marginalised “rag picker” communities of central Kolkata in education. They do this by running after school clubs in the heart of the communities. The children get remedial help with schoolwork, they sing, they play games; they enjoy occasional excursions, computer classes and so on. And where possible, they play sport. Girls’ football is new (as you see from the article). They have started with nothing – not even a team football shirt. Tiljala SHED is a tiny NGO with a huge heart and runs on a shoestring. With your help we can give these girls the chance to run, to compete, to be part of a team and to have the strength to resist the pressure to drop out of education and to marry whilst they are still children.
They have the drive … can you help us give them the opportunity?
£8.70 or $13.60 a month covers the cost of one girl in the football team £18 or $23 pays for the full kit for one girl £620 or $870 pays for coaching for the whole team for a year £550 or $725 covers all the drinks and snacks for a year for the whole team
Total cost of empowering 22 young women through fitness, teamwork and the joy of sport £2300 or $3000 per year
On a mission to deliver emergency food rations to one very needy family and two very vulnerable elderly women. This was a difficult day.
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.
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 – she said without even the 2 rupees for subsidised rice she can’t access the benefit. Would she leave and go into an old age home? we asked (not sure if that is even possible). She said no – she wants to stay here with her memories of her husband. Recently she fell over and has hurt her leg – which makes it even more difficult to cross the road. Reminded that she would get free medical attention at the hospital, she said “How can I get to the hospital? I have no money”. She has two sons but they don’t help. I asked about the neighbours. Can they help? They have their own difficulties and their own families to worry about, my colleagues tell me. Because the water is only on for a few hours a day, there is a lot of conflict over access.
Finally we visit Sakina’s shelter. She has four children. There were two teenage girls and their small brother at home. The boy was clearly very unwell and wrapped in a blanket. The girls explain that their mother is out selling aloo chat (spiced potatoes). She will earn about 50p a day. Her husband is dead and she is desperate as she cannot earn enough to feed the family. How terrible she must have felt leaving her little boy at home sick while she went out to work. I hope she was pleased to find the food parcel when she got home. Maybe she can take a few days off. I don’t know what to say. Life is so cruel here that compassion seems to be absent. I hear myself suggesting that we encourage the young people from the after school coaching classes to get involved. Good idea, say my colleagues brightly… The rations we delivered today were welcome but solve just a small part of the wider problem. I didn’t expect huge smiles of gratitude – and we didn’t get them. Despair squats in every shelter we visit.
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 short interlude for Jane to do some English with the children – colours, numbers, days of the week, months of the year, greetings – they knew it all. And then showed off their English with some songs/actions. Maths followed. Older kids doing proper arithmetic whilst the little ones were forming numbers in both English and Bengali (humbling). An engaging discussion with the children about water – and not wasting it. None of them lives in a home with running water: every drop needs to be collected from a standpipe the other side of the railway which only flows twice a day. Then they discussed plastic waste and how to avoid single-use plastic (whilst I hastily decanted the sweets I had bought them from an incriminating plastic bag to my virtue-signalling Waitrose nylon pocket bag). I did wonder how they squared all this with the fact that their family incomes mostly derive from the collection, sorting and sale of discarded single-use plastic, but if it did come up I wasn’t aware. Then it was time to go – off to proper school (where class sizes can be over 100).
Maths sessions.
Very moved by the whole experience. Tiljala SHED calls itself grassroots – and now I really know what this means. The founders and staff are of this community. Those who do manage to survive this very traditional community’s pressure to marry (for the girls) and drop out to work (for the boys) are committed to helping more to access opportunity through education.
Exercises and meditation before going off to proper school.
When the morning session finishes, Mehnaz doesn’t slope off for a much-deserved rest before the next session: she visits the homes of the children who haven’t attended in the morning. She wants to check all is OK and encourage them to come along tomorrow. And she earns Rs5000 (just over £50) a month for this. With the various groups in the afternoon, 122 children pass through this centre every single weekday. Tiljala SHED runs 5 such centres, all of them in the most deprived parts of central Kolkata, populated by the ultra-poor, rag pickers living in illegal shelters. Homeless really. Funds are desperately needed to keep this vital programme running. Please message me if you are in Kolkata and can help. In UK/US/EU/Aus you can donate online. Rs1000/USD15 a month keeps a child in education (and more).
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.
Rehana at home in her better days.
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 the godown with them. Rehana has lost her valuable stock and doesn’t know how she will repay her loans. She is in despair and doesn’t know which way to turn. Thanks to Tiljala SHED, Rehana was able to consult with our staff. Her loan repayments can be put on hold while she gets back in her feet. A staff member will accompany Rehana to the hospital where Tiljala SHED can cover medical expenses from donations to our Global Giving Project (https://goto.gg/23676). Rehana’s mother has been called in to stay and look after the children.
Rehana in her godown.
Rehana smiled at last. « When I am well again I can continue my business.
We are so proud of the women empowered by access to small loans through the Global Giving Livelihood Programme (https://goto.gg/21941)
Aware that life’s knocks can completely derail these vulnerable lives we are also relieved that we have the means to step in and prevent a temporary setback becoming a disaster. And she’s probably best off without that husband
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 clients. If I have a client, I earn a minimum of Rs.500 for that day at least. For more clients, I need more kits and need publicity but because of lack of funds I’m unable to do it.Now, I am able to earn around between Rs.3000 to 3500 per month roughly. My income goes up during festivals and the wedding season.
A purpose built training saloon beside the Park Circus slum.
Tiljala SHED Beauty Training Centre is a unique, offering free of cost to students like us.The Parlour doesn’t just offer advanced course but also Henna designing along with health and hygiene. But I feel that if we can have more additional courses in the parlour it will helps us in the future. Nail Art should also be introduced in the parlour which will help us in earning more incomes.I aspire to open my own Parlour one day. I already have a professional business card and I’m very much excited for the future.” It costs just £120 to train a young woman like Ayesha. A £35 donation buys a kit to help a newly qualified girl go freelance.
I visit Kolkata and Tiljala SHED two or three times a year. I love to catch up with old friends and spend time exploring my favourite city. But most of all I love to be part of the great work Tiljala SHED is doing amongst the city’s most vulnerable communities.
Those who live in the canal-side and railway squatter camps of East and East Central Kolkata lead the most difficult lives. Originally landless poor from rural Bihar and West Bengal, these families would have come to the big city for a better life. And in some respects, that’s what they have: the chance to collect, sort and sell other people’s waste enables them to eat. They build illegal shelters on government owned land but are mostly left alone. Occasional home-destroying fires, disease, lack of toilets and sanitation, drinking water rationed to a few hours a day are probably seen as a reasonable trade-off for leaving the hunger and backwardness of their former rural lives.
But for a family to move out of rag picking, rickshaw-driving or exploitative piecework is very difficult. The imperatives of such a hand-to-mouth existence mean that filling stomachs today takes precedence over planning for tomorrow and families remain illiterate, undocumented and poor.
Tiljala SHED began over thirty years ago, established out of the compassion of a young man for members of his own community. Mohammed Alamgir’s father came from Bihar, a landless Muslim, who made a meagre living for his family by selling meat from a tray he carried door-to-door on his head. A proud and enlightened man, he ensured his children attended school and then university. Alamgir and his brother went on to have successful careers, Alamgir as a school teacher and his brother as a businessman. Alamgir, with a group of friends, set up Tiljala SHED in 1987, a society dedicated to the welfare of his local community. They wanted to provide opportunity for others to lift themselves out of the slum and into mainstream society as Alamgir had done. He still lives in that community, now retired from teaching, with his wife and son, Shafkat, and Shafkat’ s young family. Shafkat has taken on his father’s mantle and now works tirelessly for Tiljala SHED and for the good of this community.
Very early on Alamgir was approached by two European organisations who saw his work. They understood the importance of partnering with a grassroots organisation that really understood and experienced the sufferings of these vulnerable communities. MISEREOR is the main charitable arm of the Roman Catholic Church in Germany. For 20 years Misereor has partnered Tiljala SHED, providing funding, guidance and support to this tiny organisation. AIDOS, an Italian women’s organisation, also discovered Tiljala SHED: impressed by its work empowering girls and women in the most deprived and patriarchal of communities, they too have provided support over 20 years.
With Misereor’s help Tiljala SHED has worked with thousands of rag picker families. The community has been empowered by the establishment of the Association of Rag Pickers. The ARP is run by and for the rag pickers of Kolkata. It helps them to assert their rights and entitlements, identity papers and other documentation (birth certificates, Aadhaar cards, voter cards, ration cards) which enable them to access vital government schemes. In the last 18 months the ARP has won government recognition for rag picking as a profession which provides access to SASPFUW (the catchily-named “State Assisted Scheme of Provident Fund for Unorganized Workers”). Pensions, in other words.
Misereor partnered Tiljala SHED as the rag picking community has struggled with a new threat: the introduction of waste compactors by the KMC (Kolkata Municipal Corporation) since 2013. While visitors to Kolkata remark how much cleaner the city is these days (and it really is transformed) the rag pickers have seen their incomes cut in half. Waste is now collected by the municipality and thrown, unsorted, into huge compactors which are then carried out and emptied at the city’s vast Dhapa dumping ground. To find enough dry recyclable waste to be able to feed a family, a rag picker (most likely to be a woman) starts work at 2 am. And even then, incomes have become very unstable.
Over the last two years, T SHED has been running a very successful alternative livelihoods programme. Misereor has funded the staffing, training and day-today running of the scheme. Seed money has been raised elsewhere (mostly private donors) to provide very small micro-loans to help rag pickers to establish new businesses. These loans go only to women who operate in CIGs (credit interest groups) Each group, consisting of 5 members, manages the loans and repayments collectively. If one member defaults, it is the responsibility of the whole group. The scheme works wonderfully well: we already have over 200 beneficiaries and many on the waiting list for loans. The loans are conditional upon the beneficiaries undertaking to keep their children in school, to prioritise good nutrition for their families, to reinvest in the business, and to develop a savings habit. The outcomes of this programme are excellent. Repayment rates are over 98% and the RSGF or Revolving Savings Group Fund (another catchy name) can make new loans every month. Much more seed funding is required to meet demand and to help this scheme become fully self-sustaining.
Education and Child Protection is the third pillar of Tiljala SHED’s work. Here AIDOS has provided sponsorship over the years for as many as 80 – 100 girls from the community at any one time. These girls, all from desperately poor families, can remain in education and delay early marriage. We have seen hundreds of smart young women graduate from school and college. With education comes economic power and the power to make decisions about their own lives. A working woman with economic power will marry later, keep her own children in education and is far less likely to suffer domestic violence and family breakdown. AIDOS also helped Tiljala SHED to build and run a library just for girls right in the heart of the Dara Para slum. There are 800 members for this wonderful little facility, the Gyan Azhar Library, where girls (who often share single room homes with large extended families) can study in peace, hang out together in safety, borrow books and use the computers.
Tiljala SHED works with local government schools and with the communities to ensure that all children access their right to education (RTE). The organisation aims that all school age children attend school and also provides after school remedial classes in community centres across all the five areas in which it works. Until recently the after-school facility was available only up to class 5, which is in fact the most vulnerable stage for school drop-out. Since May 2017 Tiljala SHED has run a pilot project offering evening classes for children in class 6 and upwards in the Topsia community centre. It has been a great success with 100% attendance and all the participants have remained in school and graduated to the next class.
Alongside the education programme runs child protection. Through regular meetings, workshops, street theatre and other interventions all children and their parents are made aware of child rights. Child Protection Committees comprising adults of the community take responsibility for the safety and wellbeing of the community’s children. Child Clubs are the equivalent organisations for the youngsters. I recently met one of these clubs and was deeply impressed by their campaigning zeal. They were proud that they had just a few weeks before identified and stopped (by alerting the correct authorities) a child marriage. Each one of these young people (all around 15 years old) had big ambitions and all intended to go on to higher education, to become scientists, journalists, police officers.
Tiljala SHED’s support is the hope of these young people. These three pillars – rights/entitlements, livelihood and education/Child Protection – are the framework for these vulnerable people to lift themselves from the daily hand-to-mouth existence to being participants in mainstream society. It is not the work of a few months or even years. It is generational. I see in those Child Club members – Resham, Saika, Rehan the outcome of a generation of intervention: these young people are ready to fly. Their parents may be illiterate, but they, together with Tiljala SHED are enabling the next generation to change the story. I’m sorry to have to report that Misereor’s funding to T SHED has been dramatically cut over 2018 -2019 and that it will cease altogether after that. Much has been done to change these communities for good. There is indeed sustainable development embedded in these communities. But they remain vulnerable: their voice is there but it is not a loud voice. The children will not thrive in government schools without the extra tuition they need to keep them in school and on track. The livelihood programme is not yet sufficiently funded to become a sustainable microfinance institution. Tiljala SHED’s staff, many of them from the community itself and many who have been dedicated to this work for 10, 15, 20 years, still need to be paid. They see that there are other communities trapped in poverty, families living on the streets, under the flyovers. There are children all over central Kolkata selling balloons to keep their families fed: children out of school, vulnerable to exploitation, abuse, abduction and prostitution. There are rag picker communities in other parts of the city which have had little or no intervention from NGOs like Tiljala SHED. Tiljala SHED is as much needed today as it was in 1987. So where do I come into all this? In the two and a half years I have been visiting this organisation I have slowly come to understand the communities. I have met dozens and dozens of people, Tiljala SHED’s “target” groups. I have asked a lot of questions and been closely involved with a lot of the programmes.
My first task was to start to raise the seed funding for the Livelihood Programme at the end of 2015. I have been following the programme closely ever since as the T SHED team set up the scheme and the adjusted it. It has been fascinating to see the scheme evolve and grow into such a successful programme. Access to financial services I realise now is real empowerment. The Indian Government has laid the foundations for this through a number of reforms, most notably Aadhaar cards and zero balance bank accounts for the poor (Jan Dan Yogana). With small loans (none more than Rs20,000 and many of much less) these women have either set up new businesses or expanded existing operations. They have increased their incomes, paid off their loans, kept their children in school and applied for further funding. When I interview these women some are talking about buying their own homes, sending their children to private schools. They show me their savings pass books. Such amazing entrepreneurs: they are cheerful and optimistic. And of course every Rs20,000 lent to one of them is repaid with a small amount of interest and can be lent out again to another hard working woman.
My current preoccupation is with education and child protection. The reduction in Misereor funding means that those crucial after-school remedial classes are no longer funded. We need to find the money to pay our teachers, provide tiffin (snacks) uniform, stationery and other classroom equipment. We want to extend those vital evening classes to all our community centres. We want to guarantee a quality education, regular sport, dance classes, computer classes, occasional excursions, parents’ meetings and all those other elements of a holistic education that any of us would want for our own children. I KNOW that the Tiljala SHED staff and the programmes are effective, that those children are getting a real opportunity to change the story and lift themselves out of poverty. And I know it because I can see it. And all it will cost is about Rs1000 per child per month to keep the education programme running and growing.
