Dear
Friends,
India
celebrated our 65 independence day last week with good progress as a nation for
this population and so much to take care in the years ahead. Also the whole world celebrated the 2012
Olympics early this month and many of us were amazed by the performance of
those athletes with strong determination to win their medal.
But here is
a little 13 year old girl climbing 50 feet tall coconut trees with an ambition
to become doctor and gets paid (Rs 15 per tree) from her neighbors to buy books
and other stationeries for her school.
WeReachOut
admin Mr. Srini found this student from an article in the Deccan Herald
newspaper early this month and reached out to her to see if we can be helpful
to prevent her from climbing trees without any safety measurements at this
young age. Please check the article attached in this email to know more about
this 8-grade student. You can also find
her detail on our website at http://www.wereachout.org/Admin/StudentViewForm.aspx?sid=398
We understood
from our communication that it’s common for kids in this area climbing trees
for income. Some of the questions we may
feel when we read this article.
1.
Is
it the ignorance of parents without realizing the risk or the hidden reality of
struggles within some of these families in India?
2.
Are
these neighbors taking advantage of these vulnerable kids to save some money or
under the impression of helping these kids by offering this kind of part time
job without realizing the risk?
3.
Are
they aware of child labor laws in India or the corrupted Govt. officials are
simply allowing this kind of abuse to continue?
But one
thing is sure, this girl wanted to share some of the burden and responsibility
at her home with such a determination at this young age. How do we help her to spend more time on
study to reach her goal of becoming a doctor and be an ambassador to prevent
this kind of abuse in future?
We cannot
expect the Rs 2500 sponsorship for this 8th grade from WeReachOut is going to stop her from climbing trees as her
part-time job. But at least she has the option to say “NO” for climbing 166
trees with this sponsorship for this year if she wanted.
Every
student listed on our Student-In-Need page at http://www.wereachout.org/StudentsInNeed.aspx has some unique situation behind
their request for sponsorship.
Please
check these students on our website if you would like to sponsor any students,
also help us by sharing the message with your friends to find new sponsorship or
identify this kind of well deserving students from remote places in India.
We will
keep you posted with our updates from WeReachOut
India meeting held on 29th July 2012 with pictures and more details sometime
next week.
Thank you
so much for all your support for this organization to serve its purpose. Please
visit www.wereachout.org
for more information or call us at (408) 368 7568 for any questions or
clarifications.
Special thanks
to Srini for reaching out to this student to know more about the reality and
all your hard work towards our sponsorship distribution process.
Thank you,
On Behalf of WeReachOut
Team
Richard Solomon
(408) 368 7568