Thank you for all your support through 2020

Lockdown

When India locked down on 25th March, no one was able to go out to work.  In the marginalised communities of Kolkata, families live hand -to-mouth on the daily wages of one or two family members. Rickshaw drivers, street vendors, stall holders, beggars, rag pickers, factory workers, maidservants suddenly lost their incomes.  Where families had bank accounts and savings these were soon run down and desperate people crept out of the shanty towns to find help. Crowds of desperate people came to Tiljala SHED.

Distributing Food Rations during COVID 19 Lockdown

Local groups and individuals mobilised to supply sacks of rice, dal, onions, flour, biscuits, oil.  We converted the beauty training salon to a warehouse and distribution point. Staff members who were able to come in got busy, registering applicants, handing out food vouchers and then organising COVID safe distribution. Funds and in-kind donations flowed in from all over Kolkata, from across India and around the world.  Our team of  around 10 staff and volunteers have managed to provide food rations to upwards of 35,000 hungry people over the course of the last few months.  Your donations made a huge contribution to this effort.  Read more

Cyclone Amphan

Worse was to come when Cyclone Amphan blasted across the Bay of Bengal sweeping away many thousands of homes. People who had been on the edge of survival now lost their homes as well. A Facebook appeal led, via Global Giving—to Tiljala SHED. We were offered funds to help in the relief effort, so our small team headed by truck, car and boat out to a very remote and deprived part of the Sundarbans (in the Ganges Delta, where the tigers live) with a large delivery of food rations and tarpaulins for a highly vulnerable community that had been destroyed by the Cyclone. Read more here

Repairing the Tiljala SHED Vehicle

All the heavy work required of Tiljala SHED’s single vehicle, a 12 year old Suzuki van, was too much for it.  Rats had also moved in through holes in the bodywork and the suspension was gone. I sent out an appeal for help—and although not enough to replace the vehicle, sufficient funds were raised to repair it. It is now back in service, driven by Aslam, one of our most hard working and thoroughly dependable staff members.  Tiljala SHED can do little without this car and driver—and your generosity have kept both on the road. Thank you. Read more

Back to Education though not yet to School

As India’s lockdown came to an end and people, especially those of our beneficiaries who work in India’s vast informal economy, were able to resume work and our attention needed to turn back to our core concerns: education, women’s empowerment and livelihoods. Schools remain closed in Kolkata.  Many children have access to online learning  but in these communities,  it is rare even to have a smartphone, let along a laptop. These children, already severely disadvantaged, have fallen months behind.  But, thanks  to the generosity of our donors, once again responding to my appeals, funds were raised to buy smartphones and data packs for 20 of our neediest secondary school pupils.  This is currently a pilot scheme, but I anticipate we will need to find funds for many more. Read Bhola’s Story

The Topsia Evening Class

I have written before about the Topsia Evening Class and how impressed I am by this group of highly vulnerable but driven and ambitious young people.  They are working hard to lift themselves and their families (and their community) out of poverty. With our help they will make it.  I truly believe this little group can transform their entire community with a small amount of support from us. They are now returning to evening classes 5 days a week and learning to use their smart phones to access their schools and online education. They also seem to have mastered Facebook. Read about Saika

The Smaller Children

Meanwhile the smaller primary age children have returned to our centres for daily classes. With the help of masks, hand sanitizer (especially important where there is no safe running water 18 hours of the day) and maintaining social distance by halving the class size and doubling frequency we have been able to resume our vital work  with this group too. 

Just when everything seemed to be returning to a new normal and the children were once again engaging with their education, 2 disasters rocked the Topsia community……..

Fahim

First, one of our lads in the Topsia Evening Class, Fahim,  lost his mother in a horrific road accident.  The poor boy is heartbroken. He is 17 and left to look after his sick father and two younger brothers. He wants to be a lawyer but the loss of his mother, the main breadwinner, a maidservant earning just Rs2000 (£20) a week, means that he will be under huge pressure to leave education and get a menial job, just so that the family can eat. Thankfully, Tiljala SHED , with the help of our donors, will be able to help support the family whilst Fahim and his brothers remain in education.

You can see how vulnerable these communities are, but there is real hope for those who want to change their future. I am especially interested in education and how small donations can help keep children in education, keep them safe from abuse and child labour.