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New Hope India Newsletter Aug 2023

August 9, 2023/in Blog, Newsletter/by Kimberley Chatt

NEW HOPE INDIA SUPPORTER UPDATE

Greetings from many people who know that so many in Australia are connected to them and their community – New Hope India.

We are halfway through the year and it’s hard to believe how much has happened at New Hope. First, we are truly thankful to all who have given to different projects and to children through sponsorship.

New Hope has always worked ‘horizontally’ – covering needs and situations as they arise not just a single vertical project. This means we see staff doing such a cross section of work that it takes time to absorb it all. From small but meaningful acts by Ramu giving Mother’s Day gifts to street women in the city, to discovering a whole new leprosy colony previously unknown to us!

Thank you for taking the time to read this update.

Eliazar T Rose
Director, New Hope India

DISCOVERING A NEW LEPROSY COLONY IN 2023

I know something of Australia, the South West and I ask you to imagine this! You have lived there for 25 years and someone says; “Do you know there is an incredible waterfall just an hour from where you live?” You are amazed and say, “no”. Well, after 20-plus years in Muniguda and having been to some of the remotest areas (including a place called Raghubari where people were scared when they saw a tall white-skinned woman – Maggie Sister – walking uphill to a plateau!) this is kind of what recently happened to us.

For years we have had a severely deformed young leprosy-affected person coming and going but never really telling us where he came from or went to. After a serious food and care situation he told us that he and a group of leprosy-affected people have been living reasonably near to us, down a road that we never travel on because it takes too long to go anywhere. A new leprosy colony in 2023! It bewildered the staff. They decided to stay ‘isolated’ because of social family connection reasons.

All of the people were from nearby villages and they were near to their villages, but in a forest area that is mostly thorn bushes so dense that even a goat won’t go down. A totally established mini village made from scraps of everything. We now care for this ‘new’ leprosy colony and twice a week give a ‘deluxe’ – as they call it – meal. There are children born in the colony and for me and one of our trustees, it reminded us of our lives 60 years ago.

MUNIGUDA

There is no newsletter without Namaste House. The government says it is called the ‘Care Home for Persons with Disabilities’. It’s the only such care home in western Odisha and although we are recognised, no support is offered or available. It’s a sad situation at one level but on the other level we are their guardians – their only family.

Three of our Namaste residents went to a State-level Challenged Young People’s Sports Competition. Our challenged children move around as much as their disability allows and they are also supported to move around for exercise. It’s no wonder that our Namaste group got prizes!

Now in the last six months we see Namaste young people just going along and enjoying their routine. Made happy that Covid is over, they can wander over and talk to the senior Tribal women who are back for eye checkups and cataract eye surgery.

CATARACT EYE SURGERY

On eye surgery, one of our seniors is now qualified as a Technician and has employment with a new national chain of hospitals that specialises in cataract eye surgery. Another two Nurses have qualified and are working or doing practical time, two have started a Nursing course, and in a few months one or two senior girls will be applying for admissions (a long, difficult application process).

SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

The State Government change of education policy has totally disrupted many lives and young people’s educational system and situation. However, our seniors always get back at every chance to Kothavalasa for a few days or weeks and summer holidays. I call it ‘the return of the circus’ as they are here and there! Their time here is social but at the same time they are engaged, especially the boys in doing work all through the community.

MICRO INDUSTRIES

Do you know what ‘paper marbling’ is? It’s fairly easy to do and the results get examined by each of those in the small groups that get together. It’s been a long-time hobby and social activity at New Hope but is now rarely done by anyone. Our students paste the envelope-sized pieces on their school notebook. Now they are asked by other students for prints – it’s become an ‘in thing’!

Jeevan Jyothi and Kusuma (below) making extra pocket money decorating plain bangles which nearby village women buy as quickly as they make. We are sure that they would sell at stalls in Australia but the reality today is that postage makes 75 per cent of all products that people would like to buy simply not economical or viable.

VASU AND THE COWS

We have just spent funds replanting four acres of grass seedlings for cow feed. Our previous Napier grass simply died of age! We now have a plant that needs less water and has quicker re-growth. We planted ‘extra grass’ because Pete Towns and a friend we call ‘The Walker’ keep supporting our ‘buy a cow appeal’. We now sell the surplus as income.The cows are ‘managed’ by a cross section of seniors. Gopi, who like others has helped, is still going to high school. In this photo is K. Vasu, now 6′ tall and smart (except that I have to continually remind him to ‘trim or shave!!!!’ – it’s my ‘thing’).

Vasu has a small speech impediment and finds it hard to pronounce some ‘dumb’ English words like ‘know’, ‘knot’ and then knowing the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’. He calls Anil and spells the word and Anil patiently spends five minutes explaining and helping him to pronounce a word. Vasu laughs, Anil laughs, then Vasu explains it to others … who already know anyway. He is a character.

He has just successfully passed fifth-year high school as an Intermediate at an Agriculture College. From this he has now been given a ‘free’ two months hands-on and theory cow management course at a centre called Visaka Dairy. This course is recognised as an Indira Gandhi Open University course with accommodation and meals included. So he has been told to shave every day!!

MOTHERING SUNDAY

There was a newspaper piece about Mother’s Day, which became a discussion and then Ramu asked, “why don’t we give street women a Mother’s Day gift?” When Ramu asks, all I do is nod as I know he’s going to do it anyway! We took the front pieces of Christmas cards from friends in the UK (Soroptimist, Manchester) and made a card which went with a sari and of course a banana. We are now committed to giving one woman, who is not far from where Ramu has his micro-size pigeonhole office, a meal every day. She has been in the same place for three years because of Covid. We offered her a place at New Hope, but with her mental situation she believes she can’t shift as her daughter will come back and pick her up (unfortunately not realising that her daughter left her there).

KONDH DONGRIA TRIBAL COMMUNITY

We remain committed to working with and supporting the Tribal Communities that surround our area. By New Hope India selling the handmade traditional shawls it gives many women work while they sit in huts on stilts, watching that the birds don’t eat their crop close to harvest time. After many arguments and red tape these shawls have been given a ‘G’ mark which means they can only be made now by this Tribal group of women.

We also continue to give out Safe Delivery kits to the whole tribal community.

HIV CLINIC UPDATE

We have been designated as one of only four Non-Government Organisations in the State to be able to distribute anti retro viral drugs for HIV+ persons. This saves many women and young people hours of bus travel, often having to change buses and stand in a long line when they got to the central Government pharmacy. This is changing the quality of life of many, especially widows on a micro pension, who were spending part of that on bus fares to get their medications – an irony.

FINAL WORDS

I wish to share a simple reality with so many who have supported our work. We increased the number of cows we have, with one man and his family making it happen, and a long-time friend ‘The Walker” adding to it.

The goat house was repaired, again made a reality by one man. Every child who is receiving education, from our youngest who is now getting taller and stronger (U. Sai to Sumanth who is about to have a university seat allocated to him for studies towards a doctor MBBS).

Sponsorship is a ‘magic key’. It is impossible to explain that a majority of senior girls now going in and out and staying in safe hostels are from poor backgrounds (I think you say in Australia, ‘the other side of the railway tracks’). You can find out how to become a child sponsor here.

That expression was a truth for me – the Bethany Colony since my early days is still a hutment slum leprosy colony, literally on the other side of the railway line.

We still support women working in Bethany so they do not have to go begging. They make the bags many have seen and purchased.

For project information please email newhopeindia@live.com.

New Hope Newsletter June 2016

June 22, 2016/in Blog/by New Hope

It has been a long time since Maggie sister has put out a newsletter for the subscribers of New Hope Australia. At this time Maggie sister is very ill and we are filling in to take the pressure off her. With her present health problem we are hoping that she can take a break from the intensive fund raising she usually does and others will take a ‘share’ in this important role.

Like Maggie sister we are stepping out in faith and to quote her “I’m stepping out in faith to ask if you could help with New Hope Rural Leprosy Trust – India. I know that this year I have failed in being able to send enough money to New Hope India and that because of this some projects have had to have been pulled back a little. I haven’t had good health this year and so I haven’t been able to actively raise funds as much as I have over the past 26 years”. Maggie sister.

It’s a long newsletter, but in the end I wish you to know that we appreciate you simply being part of our ‘New Hope family’ – Please feel free to email any question. I think you all know that donations over $2 Donations to New Hope Australia are Tax deductible with DGR Status.

Let me go back to October 2014 and use the Hud Hud Cyclone as a marker. Its destruction was indescribable. The picture we had sent became real for Maggie sister and Allan (now Mr and Mrs McMullen) when they arrived in January 2016. They saw how many of the giant old mango trees that you would have thought could never be shifted even by a cyclone had gone. Sandy Furtado and Gary Urquhart had been at New Hope in January 2015 and we appreciate beyond words the work they did helping to ‘clean up’. Yet in all the effort you can still see things not like they used to be. Pieces of small broken cement sheets on the ground here and there. Stacks of pruned trees that will be sent to the timber mill for cutting to use later. It’s hard to imagine what would not have happened if the people (you) in the New Hope Australia network had not given so generously.

Hud Hud Cyclone

The Bike Ride four ten days in January of this year were fantastic bearing all things in mind. As the Director (under work pressure) I was so happy that Allan had volunteered to be the ‘organiser’ and co-ordinate with the Indian team who did a great job. For those on their second ride it was also sad because of the passing of young Vasu Gabriel in March 2015. His passing could be seen in so many ways it was hard to grasp. In all 14 Australians and 2 Brits came for the event. The couple from England had been volunteers when we were ‘young Indians establishing a rehabilitation leprosy project and treating more than 2,300 positive leprosy patients across 23 leprosy colonies in north west Orissa (now Odisha)

2016 India Bike Ride

In these ten years we have changed from giving an education in a tutorial system to a recognized school in a very modern building donated by a couple in Japan; retired teachers. Although we lost a lot in the cyclone and a subsequent tornado the ‘garden’ – from vegetables to grass for the cows and grazing for the goats held its own. The garden was the easiest repair job as nature showed us and our pumpkin harvest was great.The bike riders met all of the children, one on one in Kothavalsa. Many are sponsored and I hope those who are sponsoring received a photograph of the child with Maggie sister. Let me know if you didn’t. It allowed me to reflect on the changes that Maggie sister has seen over just the last 10 years. It was amazing to see so many grown up young people, not shy to speak to visitors in their Indian English – which is not Aussie at all! Little girls are now teenagers and going to College. I will keep this simple. Not one child going to school comes from a so called ‘normal’ background. These children are well cared for by New Hope but the children are self achievers, as a team, a group, a younger generation community. It gave us a sense of what we dreamed of years ago; independent and educated with their own personality. New Hope doesn’t portray hungry children in rags. That is how many of them actually do come to New Hope but New Hope sees that as yesterday. Tomorrow is what counts for the child.

Vegetable Garden Pumpkins

Self sufficiency is an important goal. More and more solar is being added as funds come in.

MUNIGUDA – This remote and isolated place in western Odisha where from my own 25 plus years know how much change has happened because Australians gave funds for Safe Delivery Kits, Anti-Tetanus immunization and Polio immunization. What a great sense of satisfaction for New Hope; for a backward State like Odisha, for a nation that was so far behind has now eradicated Polio. Leprosy and Polio and Safe Delivery Kits were the main targets of our collaboration with Maggie sister and goes back 25 years to days when we trekked up hills on paths to isolated villages where the idea of a ‘white person’ was unknown! Leprosy patients lived and were treated terribly in those days and it is a kind of celebration to see positive changes. Sadly the disease is far far away from eradication. Namaste House – was once almost 75% of Polio crippled children. The corrective surgery offered in those times was made possible through support from Australian donors. Namaste House is now a Home for Challenged Children. Reality is this is the only place for such children in western Odisha. Part of the mental disability was resolved with the introduction of iodized salt by us 15 years ago. What a riot of joy and simple ‘this is me’ attitude of the children. They love social activates of music and singing and to entertain. The people who care for these young people are to be admired for their patience and devotion. These young people are simply a part of the New Hope family, sentimentally and in reality of the situation they live in. We have been able to keep our links with the Dongria Kondh tribal community in the surrounding hill forests against the odds of anti-social interference caused by the threat of mining in the hills that is considered sacred to the tribals. Its complex and we see beyond that in being links to non formal education. Through New Hope efforts formal education and care centers are now possible. We have maintained our links with better sustainable agro activities too. For women we have been their key to better mother and child health. We have had to change our working plan for cataract eye operations. It’s been a challenge but the number who have had the opportunity to cataract eye surgery as not decreased. The Community Centre is their link for both health and to access rights that they are entitled too. People who give virtual gifts on line for seeds and tree seedling would see the result of that in the 55 tribal villages we cover.

LOVE BUNDLES: Of the many Love Bundles pictures I like this one of Tribal Women Health Workers giving out bundles to destitute women in Muniguda Community Centre.

Tribal Women

The woman on the right is the senior Social Worker and has incredible responsibility for handling pregnant women and ensuring they have Safe Delivery Kits (One of the great ongoing projects that Maggie sister keeps herself involved in)

Thank you to all of you who faithfully give to our Love Bundle appeal once a year and many who give at different times during the year. We hand out these gifts close to Christmas. Your Bundle goes out to people at a leprosy clinic taken over from Gandhi Memorial Leprosy Foundation by New Hope in a remote rural area. Rural people with cured leprosy and having ulcers; part of the disease problem. Truth is that the disease is not eradicated as we are often led to believe and I we see again, young people at the Outpatients Clinics we organize.

It worries us all that young people are coming with early deformities – self reporting to our Clinics. I mention the gratitude for the Love Bundles because these simple gifts change the quality of life of some of the still poorest people, especially aged in leprosy colonies and aged in the tribal villages, to homeless women in the city shelter we are now assisting.

Kindest regards
Eliazar T Rose.
Chairman New Hope India.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief

October 19, 2014/in Blog/by New Hope

There was a very short last minute alert that the tracking of the Hud Hud Cyclone would actually hit the coast at Visakhapatnam. I had gone to Muniguda the previous day as normally the cyclones hit far more north in places like Berhampur and Puri where we have leprosy colony care programmes. When I heard that the path had changed and Visakhapatnam had been struck I was stunned. However we had made basic plans on the possibility that we may suffer strong winds and that possibly highways would be blocked north of us. We purchased longer shelf life vegetables and had vegetables growing. It was just as well we had done this. We always have diesel in store for the generator and tarpaulins if needed.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief – Kitchen

There was a very short last minute alert that the tracking of the Hud Hud Cyclone would actually hit the coast at Visakhapatnam. I had gone to Muniguda the previous day as normally the cyclones hit far more north in places like Berhampur and Puri where we have leprosy colony care programmes. When I heard that the path had changed and Visakhapatnam had been struck I was stunned. However we had made basic plans on the possibility that we may suffer strong winds and that possibly highways would be blocked north of us. We purchased longer shelf life vegetables and had vegetables growing. It was just as well we had done this. We always have diesel in store for the generator and tarpaulins if needed.

To replace the loss and damage roof of Goat & Chicken House needs 40 sheets, each sheet costs $30.
The Cow shed, which is in ruins needs 42 sheets of different type and costs $15 each.
To clean up the Community Centre and means taking trees from Power lines needs total $490.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Generator

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief The irony that I had come to Muniguda only to find the reality was where I had just left. Trains stopped for 4 days and roads closed and there was no communication with Visakhapatnam. It is incredible that less than 100 people died in the whole area of the cyclone area.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Drumstick Garden

The destruction to our community centre is almost too hard to describe. We lost 6 of our biggest and oldest mango trees. Our ‘Mother Mango Tree’ under which children play, guest sit in awe at its size stands almost alone and without a leaf. The loss of the other 5 fruit bearing mango trees, the total loss of our Papaya, Drum Stick vegetable tree and our Curry leaf tree and all vegetables in the Roellis Garden is painful to see.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Old School

Our Cowman turned the cows out in the storm and they went and stood and then sat in the playground. The cow shed roof flew off. A tree hit the goat house and its damage is hard to explain. The whole roof got knocked off centre and then damaged. Vasu who many of you know from emails had just supervised and worked on a new chicken house project and it ‘flew away’!

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Goat House

The damage to the school structure was minimal. There are no formal classes this week but the children are organized with ‘home work’ and studies. There is very limited lighting at night as we use the generator as minimally as possible due to the cost and shortage of diesel. Unfortunately the solar system was damaged – actually the electrical inverter and batteries, in one Home and in two others the panels have been damaged. The simple room that Babu and his wife and child have at the side of the First Aid Centre lost its roof. They had shifted to the First Aid main building prior to the storm. The couples who look after the goats and help in the garden were fortunate not to be hurt as they had a feeling to leave the cottage. Its roof crumbled and its destruction tells me the might of the 160 miles per hour cyclone that went on for 36 hours.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Babu`s House

After months of hard and rather stressful work getting the Bio-gas anaerobic digester to produce gas we lost all the gas as the tin sheet covering made to protect the dome from monsoon rain cracked the gas outlet pipe and blew off. The day prior to fitting new stove burners into the kitchen.

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief Children Home

Hud Hud Cyclone Relief

Phailin Cyclone Relief

December 8, 2013/in Blog/by New Hope

The response to our Cyclone Relief appeal was sincerely appreciated. The devastation in some colonies was hard to describe, with the funds one colony which has repaired have expressed their gratitude to every one who gave. The work of the repair is been supervised by a social worker volunteer.

Phailin Cyclone Relief

Thank You – Phailin Cyclone Relief