Mission Muskaan

She was smiling at me. She was just around 13 years old I guess. I smiled at her back. Seeing her smile, I realized at least I have done one good thing in my life. I have done something for my people in my society. The little girl was one of many children who spend their life in orphanages.

During September 2005, I came up with idea of celebrating New Year with orphanages. In midst of our daily schedules, lets do something that would make us feel we are doing something for the society. I know everybody will be busy with their office work, mail checking (:)), Con calls, meeting friends and girlfriends, watching movies, etc. But in spite of these genuine reasons (?), let’s do something for the orphans.

I planned to have my friends and my colleagues (most of them are software engineers) along with me to contribute to orphanages and spend their precious time with orphanages.
I am very much fond of children. So when I had this thought, it really touched, moved and inspired me. So I started to collect the orphanage information from my friends. One of my friends, Mr. Narayanan helped me in getting some 5 to 6 addresses. Thanks to him once again. That was my first step towards my Orphanage project.

I then went to one of orphanages “Anatha Shishu Nivasa” near Bull Temple Road and talked to caretaker Mr. Gurukiran. I told him that we are interested to spend some time in service of orphans. We discussed around half an hour on how we can serve orphans and the options we have. We are allowed to help in the form of toys, uniforms, books, medicines, donations, etc. There were 2 options which looked suitable for me.
* We can donate the necessary things (food, play things, books, blankets, etc) to them and one weekend we can go and play with them/ we will serve food for children in their own orphanage.
* Second one requires more budget. i.e. taking orphans to a resort to spend their whole day with us. Transportation and food are supposed to be provided by us.
We can go organization level in this case, I mean, through our company CGI.

As I finished talking with him and was on the way outside, one small girl of age 10 years was standing in front of me on the steps. Her hands were stretched forward asking to lift her. I was dumbstruck. She never knew me and I dint know what to do. Then I just went to her and lifted her hand was asking her name. By that time, a lady staff came and took that girl from me. I was totally touched by small little girl. There itself I decided I will complete my project irrespective of circumstances.

There were around 66 children overall in this orphanage. I then enrolled almost all my colleagues and friends for this project and formally shoot out a mail having all the details and asked volunteers to come forward so that we can go one weekend and celebrate with children. Some couple of weeks got passed without any results due to some reasons like hectic work, deadlines, critical issues, conference calls, going to native places, etc

Finally we decided to start on Jan 1st 2006 to celebrate New Year with the orphanage children. Hemanth GA, Arun Vatsa, Raghavendra Naik, Kanakaraj, Jyothi Naik, Nisha, Parameshwar Hegde, Prasanna Hebri and Jayakrishnan along with me went to the orphanage. We decided to sponsor food for one day which comes to 1200/-.And also, we had plans to serve the food in our own hands to children during their lunch and spend some time with them after lunch. Hence, we decided to meet in front of Orphanage at 1:00 PM afternoon since their lunch time is at 1.30PM. When almost al\everybody assembled near the gate, it was almost 1.30PM and lunch was started for them. Since it was first day of the New Year 2006, lots of family people and college students came to celebrate New Year among the children. We were really surprised to se so much help coming from the society. When we entered orphanage, already college students and orphanage staff were serving food for the kids. There were children of various ages from 8 months to 16 Year old where 60% of them were girls. The caretaker told us that they get these orphans lying in front of their gate, placed in garbage, left in hospitals, etc. The parents would have abandoned the child due to poverty, miscarriage, girl factor, etc.

All children were sitting in a line and were reciting prayers loudly before lunch. Before starting lunch they told “Annadata Sukhibhava” which really touched my heart by their innocence and cuteness. The little orphanage where they lived looked like a place where heaven touched earth.

We were with children for around 2 hours and then we decided to leave. We donated 1200/- to caretaker Gurukiran for which I got receipt. We could not mingle with children since there were more visitors than the children on New year day. So we decided to come another day between 4PM and 6.30 (Children Leisure time) during weekends and spend time by organizing some games where each and every child would be participating. We also came up with idea of going to other orphanages where proper facility is not there. Then we left the place, had our lunch at Kamat Bugal Rock Hotel nearby and left to our respective houses.

Time to start organization level participation in Orphanage project in bigger way. So I already brought this idea to SPARSH (Committee for Extra Cuurricular Activities). This social service is planned in Jan month end. Lets hope and wish this will be successful.

Information:

Anatha Shishu Nivasa provides care for children up to 18 years, including shelter, food, clothing and education. Apart from formal education, the children are trained in job oriented courses in Vocational Training Centre. The single parents or parents who do not have any children are allowed to come on each Sundays and spend some time with these children.

The Address of this ashram is as follows:
Anatha Shishu Nivasa,
#1A, 5th Main, NR Colony,
Opp To BMS College Of Engg.,
Bull Temple Road,
Bangalore - 560 019.
Ph: +91 80 26508641
Email : anathashishu@gmail.com

There are other options to serve the children in a better way which are as follows:
* Donate Rs 1200/- and sponsor food for one day
* Donate Rs 400/- and sponsor one day lunch/dinner
* Donate Rs 200/- and sponsor one day breakfast/evening milk
* Provide one set of uniform shoes by donating Rs 7000
* Provide one set of school uniforms by donating Rs 10000
* Sponsor one child for one year by donating Rs 15000
* Create an endowment (corpus fund) for feeding/education/maintenance by donating a specific amount by your choice
* Sponsor a project under vocational training center
* Donations in any kind are also accepted like provisions, stationery, clothing, toys, books, games, sports goods, fruits, vegetables, etc
Please avoid cooked food, sweets and chocolates