Introduction
This last year has tested our resolve and survival as an organization , in many ways, as it has been a year of turmoil and change.
Tragically, Rama Ananth, President of Ashraya since our inception 22 years ago, passed away on the 4th of March 2004, aged 74. Rama lent dignity and commitment to her office and always used her considerable contacts to further the interests of the organisation and the children we serve. A memorial service was held at Ashraya the 13th March at 4 p.m., which 60 friends, colleagues, family and wellwishers attended. Tributes were paid by Nomita and Sumati and her daughter Sita. Shalini, one of our sight - impaired children, sang " Candle in the Wind ", most movingly and brought tears to many eyes. We had readings from the Bible, Khalil Gibran and the Buddhist scriptures, by Christy Abraham , Surya Vaz and Anjali Advani. One of the women from our Women's Centre sang a bhajan and the Ashraya children, whom Rama loved so dearly, sang a song. Neena Nayak and Leslie D'Silva , who knew Rama for many years, spoke about their association with her. We had in our midst, Rama's family, Tara Gandhi, son Ajay and his wife and Rama's husband Mr. Sreenivasan. We still continue to miss Rama's presence at Ashraya.
Mrs. Sumathi Subbaiah, one of our Board Members, was unanimously nominated to be the next President of Ashraya, at the AGM held on 3rd April 2004.
Comings and Goings
Another tragic event which took our breath away, was the suicide of our young driver Sridhar, on the 5th of January 2004, because of some family problems. We helped the family with the funeral and other expenses.
Our commiserations also to Shanthi Chacko, who lost her mother on the 6th of January 2004, aged 93. We had actually started Ashraya 21 years earlier, sitting around her kitchen table. Her death came exactly a month after Shanthi lost her brother to cancer.
Nirmala Motha, Social Worker at Ashraya, married Tibutius on the 6th of December 2003. Nirmala has moved to the Middle East, to join her husband, who is working there.
Usha Lekha, MSW, joined Ashraya on 05.01.2004, and has taken over the work of Subhashini who left to have a baby.
On 17.01.2004, we had a farewell lunch for Chitra who left for family reasons. Chitra was handling our outreach programme and stimulation programme for the children.
Mrs. Manjula, the teacher for the older children, running the non-formal class, resigned to join her husband in the Middle East. She has been replaced by Mrs. Ramani.
Mrs. Anuradha, our accountant, resigned on the 13th of April and was replaced by Mrs. Ratna who joined on the 1st of April and is handling her work most competently.
Priya David, our Senior Social Worker for the past five years, resigned to get married at the end of June 2004. Priya and Biju got married at St. Marks Cathedral on the 14th of August and Ashraya was represented by a big contingent from all our projects.
Radhika Nambiar, MSW, joined us on the 3rd of May, 2004 and Priya handed over all her duties to Radhika most conscientiously over a period of two months.
Rekha, our Creche worker at the Children's Home, resigned on 07.07.2004, after 9 years, as she was due to have her second child after a gap of 14 years ! Rekha was replaced by Chandrika, who joined us on 1st April 2004.
Finally, Mr. James, our Principal at Neelbagh , resigned on the 30th of June 2004, for better prospects abroad, without giving us any notice. The school held a farewell function for him.
This brings our tally to 8 key people leaving the organization to date. The wonder is that we have survived this tidal wave. It has been a tremendous job to orient and train so many new people and to interview for so many positions. I hope that for the moment we have stabilized, and can continue the way we are till more wedding bells start ringing !
Special Events
1. The AGM was held on the 8th of November 2003, at 11 a.m. We had five committee meetings during the year under review. Our committee remains small and hands on, with each member being actively involved in Ashraya's multifarious activities.
2. The AGM was followed in the afternoon , by our Annual Diwali party, the event that brings Ashraya's adopted children and their parents joyously back into the fold. About 200 people attended the function, including our Creche and Women's Centre staff. The Hon. Minister for Women and Child Welfare, Mrs. Motamma, was the chief guest and she was most accommodating as rain promised to be spoil sport and we all had to crowd into our upper terrace. The Puppet show was organized by the Sanjivini Trust, and the entertainment was by the children. A special tea and crackers were enjoyed by the children, while the adults heaved a sigh of relief that once more we had come out of it unscathed.
3. The New Horizon Public School, invited our children for their Diwali Party, held on the 25th of October. They bought new clothes for all the children. The children enjoyed an evening of entertainment, good food and yet more crackers.
4. The Ashraya annual picnic held on 21.11.2003, took us this year to Rema Rainbow Valley, located in a small area near Hosur called Little England. Staff from all our projects and the Ashraya older children went for the picnic. The staff organized many games and really let their hair down . Some adventurous ones even jumped into the swimming pool, followed by the children who were thrilled to get into the paddle pool. We had a nice lunch and tea and headed back to Bangalore. The picnic certainly helps to bring the Ashraya team closer together.
5. On Children's Day we had an impromptu fancy dress party, organized by the volunteers at Ashraya.
6. On Monday 24th November, ECTV aired a programme in Kannada on Adoption featuring Ashraya.
7. On 18.02.2004, Shanthi, Nomita and Usha took the older children to the Lalbagh gardens. They were fascinated by the birds and the fish in the lake and all the beautiful trees and flowers.
8. We had a special lunch for the Ashraya volunteers on the 26th of August. Everyone enjoyed the Chinese meal and most of all getting to know each other. This was also one way of us saying thank you to our volunteers for the wonderful way in which they help us.
9. The Christmas Party was held on the 22nd of December. The Overseas Women's Club had thoughtfully packed individual gifts for each child. Michael Mercy played a believable Santa and the children enjoyed the Christmas carols and special eats.
Workshops and Seminars
1. The CARA International Conference on " Ethics ", was held in Delhi, from the 8th - 10th December. Nomita Chandy, Secretary of the organization, represented Ashraya and was a speaker on a Panel discussion.
2. Anand, the dance and music teacher from Neelbagh, attended a Puppet workshop organized by Sutradhar, on the 7th and 8th of November, which he said was very stimulating.
3. A training programme was held for Government functionaries from the Southern States, from the 7th to 9th of January 2004. Nomita Chandy made a presentation on, "The challenges of Adoption". Our Social Worker Subhashini made a presentation on " Home Committees ".
4. Nomita Chandy was a resource person at the VCA-K - KSCCW training programme for Government Probation officers, at ISI on 12.01.2003. The topic covered was " The Reception and Safe Care of Abandoned Children ".
5. Lavinia Lewis , attended a talk by Lakshmi Krishnamurthy , on " Home and the World " organized by HHS, a women's Organisation, on 14th February 2004.
6. Our crèche teachers had a most informative visit to " Equip Resource Center " for pre-school education organized by Sutradhar , on the 20th of February.
7. Usha Lekha attended a workshop, " Training for Trainers " , at NISD, New Delhi, on aspects of the J.J Act 2000, from the 23rd to 27th of February 2004.
8. Subhashini was a participant at a workshop on Early Intervention for Rehabilitation of Multiple Disabilities, held at the Spastics Society, on 20.02.2004. Usha Lekha attended the workshop on " Early Identification of Disability " on the 4th of March.
9. On 12.03.2004, we held an in-house workshop for our crèche teachers from the Site Creches and Neelbagh, which was led by Lavinia Lewis and Creche teacher Rani, to pass on the experiences they had gained at the workshop attended by them at Equip.
10. The Family Court Judges, Bangalore, visited Ashraya on 24.03.2004, as part of the field visits organized by the Judicial Academy of Karnataka, in their training programme on Adoption.
11. We had an off-shore in-house retreat -cum -workshop, on " Conflict Resolution " from the 26th - 27th March 2004 at Nandi Hills. The team leader was Jyothi Subbarao, and apart from the fun, got down to a lot of serious business and soul searching. Sumati, Surya, Nomita, Priya , Usha, Lavinia and Suma participated -members of the Ashraya Board and our Social Workers.
12. A Training Programme on the J.J. Act 2000 was co-ordinated by the NSLIU. Presentations were made by Usha Lekha, Sashikala (teacher at the Observation Home) and Nomita Chandy from 15-17th April, at the Law School. There were 30 participants.
13. We had an Adoption Workshop at Ashraya , on 26th of June 2004. Mr. Thangaraj, Secretary, DWCD, was the chief guest and about 40 adoptive parents attended the session. Three booklets, translated from the Swedish originals, were published, titled
1) Adopting an Older Child
2) Becoming a part of the Adoptive Family
3) Emotional Needs of an Adopted child.
The resource people were Pavani Ramesh, President of Ashraya Adoptive Parents Association, Dr. Aloma Lobo, President of VCA -K and Nomita Chandy.
We are grateful to the Swedish Adoption Centre for supporting this initiative.
Visitors
1. Helena Munther, a Swedish journalist, visited the Children's Home and Site Creches on the 6th and 7th of November 2003. She also attended Suma's wedding, which was quite an engaging experience for her.
2. Nomita Chandy, was one of the chief guests at a function organized on Children's Day at the Government Certified School for Boys and Girls, at Bangalore.
3. Teri Bell from AIAA visited us on the 27th of November and then, as if she could not tear herself away from us, came back for a whole week in July 2004. Teri is an expert in finding homes for Special Needs children and we value her inputs into helping us assess our children.
4. On 06.02.2004, we hosted a tea for Mr. Brian Wilke and the team from " Gulf for Good ", which had hiked from Mysore to Ooty, as a fund-raiser for South Indian charities, including Ashraya.
5. A surprise inspection was held by CARA on 13.02.2004 and we were happy to welcome Mrs. Mishra and Dr. Jaganath Pati, accompanied by Dr. Aloma Lobo and officers from the Department of Women and Child Welfare, Government of Karnataka.
6. Tanvi Parekh, student of Leeds University, U.K. was on a work related placement at Ashraya , as part of a module in her degree course in Childhood Studies, " Changing trends in Domestic Adoption ".
7. Mr. & Mrs. Israel, came to pick up their little girl Benita on 28.01.2004. This had been a long saga of tragedy and then hope. Benita's biological parents were murdered in a sensational case, cracked by the Bangalore Police. The baby was rescued and brought to Ashraya and the Police Commissioner Mr. Sangliana, took a special interest in the child and hand picked the family ; who are NRI'S from the USA. We are happy to report that Benita is growing beautifully and is very happy in her adoptive home.
8. Mrs. Monica Lind, from the Swedish Adoption Centre visited us on the 19th of April and as always we were happy to have Monica in our midst.
9. Natalya Gonacharova and Pat Briscoe from WACAP, visited Ashraya on the 5th of July. Natalya takes over from Ms. Barbara Knowles and we were most pleased to meet both Natalya and Pat and to continue our long-term association with WACAP.
Excerpts from Our Visitors Book
"I am very proud of Ashraya. They are doing wonderful
work for the community. We all should encourage them. Government will also give
more help for them".
Mrs. Motamma, Minister for Women and Child Development, Govt. of Karnataka.
"Hats off to the Human service done by Ashraya. I
congratulate one and all who are serving in this institution selflessly".
Manjula Naidu, Former Deputy Mayor BMP.
"Ashraya has now transformed itself into a major
institution , which can match any model in the world. However, the old values
of Indian tradition have met with a happy union of modern progress. I feel a
sense of pride to see the devotion which the office bearers exude. I wish them
further success ".
Mrs.Sudha V. Reddy Former, M.P.
"As always Ashraya is a shining star. I find the
institution to be what others should strive for in child care ".
Michelle & Daniella Smargassi Adoptive Parents.
"May the Good Lord be with you always ". Mr. M.T. Sangliana, M.P. Former Police Commissioner, Bangalore.
"Men and women working in Ashraya Children's Home are
doing great service to the human community".
Mr. A.C. Vidyadhar Karnataka Judicial Academy.
"It is wonderful to be back to the place where I spent time as a volunteer in 1991 and see the development over the years".
Ajit Chaudhuri Paul Hamlyn Foundation
"I
have had a wonderful experience here, though I have come for inspection".
Mrs. S.K. Mishra J.D. CARA
"The
Agency is doing a wonderful job in rehabilitating orphan children".
Dr. Jaganath Pati, D.D. CARA.
"From our deepest heart, we thank all of you for all
the love and hospitality you have given us. Kerstin Padma has enjoyed to be
back and help with the toddlers. May god bless you and let your work at Ashraya
prosper ".
Elizabeth & Kerstin Johansson. Adoptive parent and adoptee.
"A
wonderful " Home " for children without homes ". Congratulations
and best wishes.
Dr. Nilima Mehta, Chairperson, CWC, Mumbai.
"The
organization is very dedicated to the cause of children in need of care and
protection. The Children's Home is very well maintained and the children look
well taken care of".
Mr. D. Thangaraj Principal Sec., DWCD, Govt. of Karnataka.
"Dearest
colleagues thank you so much for your hard and noble work serving children. We
are very much impressed with the friendly and caring and professional Ashraya
family ".
Natalya Goncharova, Patricia Briscoe WACAP. USA.
"Children
are happy in the institution, it needs encouragement".
Mr. M.C. Chidananda D.D., DWCD, Karnataka.
"I would just like to thank each and everyone for taking care of me. If I didn't get so much love, I don't know where I would be. So I want to say thanks ". Priyanka Louvelle, Adoptee.
"Congratulations.
Impressive child care services. Keep it up".
Nishita Shah, Chairperson, VCA-Pune.
"Beautiful
new additions, with a lot of thought to detail. A real oasis for children. Hats
off to Ashraya ".
Leila Baig, CVARA, New Delhi.
Children’s Home
We have this year, managed to expand the facilities at the Children's Home and are appreciative of the new space we have for the toddlers and a guest room for visiting Social Workers and Volunteers. We now have 60 children at any given time, out of which a large component is always of Special Needs, handicapped children. A small miracle takes place each time we manage to find that loving home for a blind, deaf, or otherwise severely handicapped child. We owe a great deal to all the wonderful Agencies we work with, worldwide, who are our partners in this very special programme, which reaffirms our faith in humanity.
We have struggled this past year with getting our license for in-country and inter-country Adoption. The whole process was stalled on account of a little boy, earlier adopted and then relinquished to Ashraya, as the adoptive mother didn't want the child and was abusing him. There has been a great deal of debate over whether a child adopted under HAMA can be relinquished and re-adopted. I am happy to say that above all, CARA took the view that the " Best interests of the child ", must be the determining factor. The Child Welfare Committee, Bangalore, intervened in this case and after many long months there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Principal Secretary, DWCD, also did a good deal to unravel the complexities of this case.
Mrs. Nomita Chandy continues to be the treasurer of the VCA-K. She is also a member of the Adoption Advisory Cell , Government of Karnataka.
Currently we have 60 children in the Children's Home, of whom 24 have some degree of disability, or the other.
Adoption statistics related to the period April 2003 to March 2004:
Indian Adoption : 23
International Adoption (Special Needs) : 12
International Adoption (Normal) : 5
Children demised : 5
Children returned to biological parents : 15
82 % of Healthy normal children were placed in Indian Adoption.
Ashraya continues to be a Fit Person Institution and we are an Implementing Agency of the Child Helpline. Many of the children referred to us are through the Childline, though I do believe we get a larger percentage of the Special Needs children.
SIDA Evaluation
The SIDA evaluation , of SIDA Aided projects at Ashraya, was submitted on 7th December 2003, and was done by Anuradha Rao. In the summary she writes, " My assessment based on the detailed analysis outlined in earlier sections, is that Ashraya has made concerted efforts to fulfill the intended objectives of each project. Ground realities have called for making necessary changes and Ashraya has been largely able to modify the projects according to these, while still keeping the fundamental objectives in view .
All three projects are intended as pilot projects , that may inspire replication. All three also have tremendous scope for expansion, both within the existing projects and as models to be replicated by Ashraya or other agencies ".
It was indeed an interesting experience to have an outside evaluator look at all our work, quite objectively and to give us valuable feed - back to enable us to fine - tune the projects and achieve our goals. We also hope that the evaluation will help us source other donor agencies, to fund other schemes we have in mind.
The projects evaluated were the Neelbagh Rural School, the Women's Centre TARA and the assistance to the Government Observation Home.
Women’s Centre
Currently we have 18 women in the Centre. 14 women found shelter in TARA this year and 9 were rehabilitated.
On March 8th 2004, Women's Day was celebrated at the Centre. The women shared their experiences. One of the women sang a song and her beautiful voice was appreciated by one and all. The children spread joy by dancing and singing The celebration concluded with a sumptuous lunch .
Mr. Ajit Chaudhuri, Co-ordinator in India, of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, visited TARA on July 23rd, 2004.
Mrs. Nomita Chandy and Lavinia Lewis, addressed a group of students doing their graphic designing course. The students also visited the Centre. These students will be designing posters which will be put up in slums, etc., to reach out to women in need of our assistance.
Creches
This year we have had to shift two of our Puravankara crèches to new sites. On August 15th 2004, Independence Day celebrations were held at each of the crèches. We also had a formal inauguration of the crèche at Marathahalli and Mr. Suhas Kulkarni, the Chief Engineer of Puravankara Builders, was the Chief Guest. We are most grateful to Mr. Ravi Puravankara for announcing a donation of Rs. 1 lakh to Ashraya on the occasion .
On April 28th 20004, a group of teenagers visited the K.R. Road Creche. They taught the children some action songs and distributed some goodies to them. The visitors were happy to see the children.
We have approx. 150 children in our four crèches. We are most grateful to the Builders ; A.C. Dalarna, and Hebbel Schule, for supporting this project.
Neelbagh
The construction work at the school is nearing completion. We had decided to upgrade the old campus after the work on the new High School had been completed. The Ashraya Management monitored the work closely.
New Year was celebrated on 16th of January 2004. Mrs. Nomita Chandy, Mrs. Surya Vaz, Mrs. Sumathi Satish and Ms. Priya David were present for the occasion. Children arranged some cultural items and gifts were later distributed to them. Our thanks to ICARE for sponsoring the event.
In the month of March, senior teachers from the school, Mr. Raghavendra, Mr. Nagaraj, Mr. Shankar and Mrs. Varalakshmi visited Ashraya, to pay their condolences at the memorial service organized in memory of Mrs. Rama Ananth.
The Annual exams for the year 2003-2004 were conducted from 5th to 10th of April and all the students were promoted after the results were declared on 16th of April. The summer vacations started from 17th of April.
School reopened on the 17th of May for the academic year 2004-2005. 40 new children were admitted into the school and the total strength is now 233 children , with 83 children in the hostel and 150 day scholars. 11 children left the school and among the new admissions 14 were from our crèches in Bangalore and the rest were local residents.
The school bid good-bye to Mr. James Joseph, Principal of the school, who resigned in July 2004. We now have a new Principal , Mr. Roy Joseph who has joined Neelbagh school, along with his wife, Mrs. Binu Joseph, who is an English teacher. Mr. & Mrs. Joseph were earlier teaching in a school in Eritrea.
In this academic year, the school is going to send its first batch of 10th std. students for the Board Exam. As we have a small number of 13 children in the 10th, we have been tagged along with the Rayalpad Government school, for the exams.
We have applied for the recognition for our 9th and 10th standard and are awaiting the copy of the recognition, to apply for the school code, which is essential to enable the 10th students to write exams in our school. This continues to be a time consuming process and we have written to the Government of Karnataka and to the Education Secretary, Government of India, to rationalize the system.
The school has a new DTH antenna to facilitate the reception of 30 channels. This has helped our children as they get to see BBC, Discovery, Animal Planet, and Cartoon channel etc.
A volunteer, Ms. Helen Cashin, from New Zealand, has joined the school. She is a member of the AIESEC group and is teaching the children some English, music and dance. She is very enthusiastic about helping the children with all the school activities. She will be in Neelbagh for three months.
The Founder's Day was celebrated on August 13th , and we had Mrs. Andal Damodaran , President of the Indian Council of Child Welfare, as the chief guest for the cultural activities. Mr. Ramesh Kumar, MLA, Srinivaspur, was the other guest of honour and he presided over the Sports Day.
The sponsorship reports were sent to CIAI and K.C. Mahindra, who continue to help us with the sponsorship for the children at the school. We have 119 children being sponsored by CIAI and 103 children in the Nanhi Kali project, of The K. C. Mahindra Trust. We are also grateful to ICARE for their support.
Training Programmes
1. Mrs. Indira Swaminathan conducted a training in pre-school education on the 28th and 29th of November, for the Neelbagh primary school teachers.
2. Mrs. Jyothi Subbarao, facilitated a workshop on Conflict Resolution for the staff on the 16th of February. Priya David also attended the workshop. The staff felt that the interaction helped them to understand each other better.
3. Dr.Uttara Vidyasagar, from DISHA, organized a workshop on " Sex Education " for the teachers on the 27th and 28th of February. They found it to be quite an eye - opener. We hope to conduct more such workshops, this time for the children , in the coming year.
Volunteers
Ashraya is blessed with a dedicated team of volunteers. Each one gives generously of her time and talents to touch the lives of our children, in a very special way.
Jaya, Monica and Anuradha work with the younger children.
Vidhya, Asha, Radha, Kala, Lalitha, Sheila, Claudia, Barbara and Abigail and Jayashree are the " aunties " who help with lessons, teach craft and computer skills, read to the children and play with them.
In August we had a most enjoyable lunch, as a " thank you " for all the volunteers. It was very well attended and was an opportunity for the staff and the volunteers to meet each other and compare notes. We plan to make this a yearly event.
Observation Home
A Children's Day function was held at the Observation Home on the 14th of November 2003. The Assistant Director, Mr. Munireddy, was the Chief Guest. We run a non-formal school and have a full-time teacher over there ! We have tied up with the Rotary Club for the vocational training and they have started the training in wiring and plumbing. The first batch of boys have received their certificates and will be placed in jobs with the help of the Rotary Club.
Ashraya was a part of the core-group involved with training programmes held at The National Law School, on the J.J Act 2000.
We remain as an active member of the Home Committee, managing the Observation Home for Boys, rehabilitating children in conflict with the law.
Conclusion
While we have consolidated on much of our work and can today justifiably boast of excellent facilities in all our projects, we aim to do much better. On the anvil we have a project to expand our Women's Centre and build a facility for short-term training programmes, which can also double up as a small Convention Center. We already have an acre of land near TARA and are now actively seeking donors. We are also building up the vocational training centers in Neelbagh. Our aim this year is to lay an emphasis on human resource development and we have already put out feelers to collaborate with Aditi Mallaya School, in this endeavour.
A well-known Advertising Agency in Bangalore, is helping us to platform our Women's Centre better, so as to made this facility more accessible and known to women in need. The Neelbagh opening still has not happened because of political dynamics , out of our control, but we hope that this will be a reality in the coming year. We also aim to be more proactive in helping to streamline adoption procedure and make the process less painful and at the same time, ensure that there are adequate checks and balances in place, to see that the adoption programme in this country, remains reasonably ethical.
Our special thanks to our auditors Panth & Co. ; to our lawyer Mr. G.L. Vishwanath ; our Paediatrician Dr. N.V.S. Krishnan ; to all our members and staff, for all that they do, to keep the organization running ; to our valued partners, A.C. Sweden, WACAP, CIAI, AIAA, ICARE, The K.C. Mahindra Trust, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and to all our generous donors, who support us, often unasked, in such generous and concrete terms.
Nomita Chandy
Secretary