Under the hot dusty sun,
our autoshaw, or more affectionately known as tuk-tuk, takes a non-descript dirt road which leads on to Bandhari
Village in Gurgoan district. We drive past some ghostly empty houses, lolling
cows and several running children. A private school with its orderly and tidy
buildings appears on the left – its students dressed smartly in school
uniforms. We arrive at three small buildings where Ms Nilanjana, the head of
our project in Bandhwari Village waits for us.
The building closest
to the road is a government-funded school-cum-medical centre, where the
smallest signs of hope can be found for the poor in this community. It offers medicine
such as vitamin C and calcium pills. Ayuverdic medicine is also available for the
poor, from pregnant women to the elderly. It is also a childcare centre for the
young, aged around 2 years old. Here, these kids can receive free breakfast and
lunch, which mainly consists of cereal (murmura),
tapioca, sprouts, peanuts or bread (prata),
which is made fresh daily on a cuhlha,
a traditional hand-build stove using stone bricks and cow dung and wood for
fuel. The kids here receive a basic education
as well. Government-funded textbooks and workbooks are given to the kids so
that a basic education may hopefully be a foundation for greater achievements.
A pink building stands
to the left. Here is another medical centre whose infrastructure and medicines
are funded by the Indian Development Foundation (IDF). Consultations for a fee
of 30 rupees and western medicine such as antibiotics are available. Basic
medical amenities such as a consultation room and two sparsely furnished wards can
be found in the building.
The third building
is a smaller, empty building. A man is busy painting the walls purple of what
is to be the future community library equipped with computers, funded by Inter
Globe Technologies, a company which has provided the funds for the building and
the manpower in the form of its own employees. A short while later, Inter Globe’s
employees arrive on a bus and begin to put a layer of blue on the base of
purple, bringing the building a little step closer to opening the community’s
children’s eyes to a wider world through books.
An hour later, going
up further the dirt road, we alas arrive at Bandhari village where the non-profit
organization Action for Community Transformation (ACT) is working to raise the
living standards of the community by empowering its women to create their own
income and educating its children by working with the government-funded school.
Here, a journey of community
transformation begins.
