Thursday, March 15, 2007

They don't use ANYTHING during menses ..felt criminal


Dear Friends,
A cold winter morning of 2007, about 30 kms from Patna, I was in Gidhdha, a village of Moosahari's, a 35-lakh strong community spreadacross Bihar, known for eating even rats in dire circumstances of poverty & survival.

We were with people who often dig a hole in the nights to make their kids sleep and cover them with dry grass to save them from the cold.This is a place where women tell you that they don't use ANYTHING during menses, and they can't take a bath because there is NOTHING tochange

We felt criminal, wearing sweaters and jackets. For every person who dies because of cold and for every woman who goes through a bad phasewithout a piece of cloth, we found ourselves answerable…not because it's our doing but because we are not doing enough.

I remembered a radio channel holding hundreds of sweaters because they wanted a celebrity to hand it over to us and they were not gettingdates. I remembered corporates who didn't send material to us because after collection they were waiting for the right moment to organize anevent to do it. I also thought of millions of individuals who keep the material with them in search of a real needy or waiting for adisaster…

Don't you agree that for people who roam around naked in peak winters or die because of cold, winters are a much bigger annual disaster thanearthquake or floods? For millions of women, even menses is a monthly disaster if they are forced to roam around even without a piece ofcloth to use as a napkin.

We have decided to do something; every year in addition to our present role, we will take up 100 villages and ensure that no one in thesevillages remains without clothes. That means generating over 1,00,000 kgs of extra material every year. In 2007, we will do this for 100such villages of Bihar and it has already started from Gidhha, the village I mentioned earlier.
If you understand the seriousness of this issue then I'm sure we will able to go way beyond this commitment. By simply giving us anyunwanted cloth you have in your wardrobe, you can change the realities for these people.

Do visit http://www.goonj.info/clothincentive.php to see some realities.
Work on it. Open up your mind. Make some efforts…
More on our activities in the Newsletter..
Happy reading !!
Anshu
Anshu K. Gupta ( Ashoka Fellow )
Founder -DirectorGOONJ..
Tel.- (m)-98681-46978, (o)-011-26972351Add-J-93, Sarita vihar, New Delhi-76
E-mail-
anshu_goonj1@yahoo.co.in,
anshugoonj24@gmail.com

Website- www.goonj.info

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GOONJ Founder -Director Anshu K. Gupta விடமிருந்து வந்த e-mail அப்படியே இங்கு பதிவு செய்யப்பட்டுள்ளது.

இந்தியாவில் உலகின் 500 பணக்காரர்களில் 3 பேர் இருப்பதும், SEZ பற்றிய செய்திகளும் ஏனோ மனதில் வந்து போகின்றன.

உதவ விருப்பம் உள்ளவர்கள் மேலே உள்ள முகவரியில் தொடர்பு கொள்ளலாம்.
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தமிழக முதல்வர் அவர்களுக்கு
http://kalvetu.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-post_114913553794167251.html