One Step Forward

We were inspired by the stories that we heard in the Design for Change conference. These stories inspired us into ‘being the change’ in the world. After the conference we realized that we too could do something to bring smiles on the faces of the ones who had a little less in life. We thought we should help them when we realised after knowing how blessed we are.

When we started our campaign we heard a story of a girl who lived in a slum with her parents. They had a toy stall in the Janmashtami fair. This girl had been milk-fed by her mother and was then ‘put on the ground’ literally. A dog passing by was drawn closer to the girl due to the smell of the milk. What happened next was unbelievable. In a horrifying moment, this dog ate the girl’s jaw. A social worker tried to convince the parents into getting the girl treated as it was a simple jaw replacement operation. The social worker was also willing to bear the expenses, but the family believed in superstition and couldn’t give up their job for a few days. The parents were required to be physically present during the operation, but they refused. Since then, the girl couldn’t eat anything and on the day of Navam during Janmasthami, she died. The parents called it fate! The story of this young girl also made us realize that help was needed for the under-privileged, and we being the blessed ones should be the ones to help.

After the DESIGN FOR CHANGE launch we realised how much power we children had, and that we could do wonders, just by sparing some time. In our city Rajkot there are many slums and in these slums people often have health problems. These uneducated people are financially weak and at times they do not know or realise the need to see a doctor when there are health issues. Thus we went and visited a well-known social worker Mr. Jitubhai. He has spent his whole life helping children who are less privileged and whose parents are financially weak. In his institute-HAPPY HOME we saw a girl with a deformed leg. We took her to a well-known orthopaedic surgeon of our town, Dr. Rao. He said that Komal (the girl) had to be operated urgently or else she would not be able to walk again. He said he will try his best to keep the cost low and he helped us to get her operated

in Rs.10,000 whereas the civil hospital had asked for Rs.50,000 for the same. He did not even take any consultation fees.

After helping Komal we met Mr. Taksh Mishra who is also a social worker and works mainly with the Bhaktinagar slum in Rajkot. Whenever we had a holiday, we used to visit the slum. After school, we continued to visit this place at least twice a week which was difficult for us with the pressure of our IGCSE exams (Grade 8 Checkpoint) coming up. Our teachers and parents supported us throughout. In this slum, there were eight people who were deaf and needed hearing aids. We also met a boy named Lalo who had been recently operated in a health camp, but still needed serious courses of physiotherapy failing which his legs would be deformed again. We took Lalo to Dr. Rao who said we should take him to Ramkrishna Ashram where he would get physiotherapy as this place had proper equipment for the same. When we went to Ramkrishna Ashram they said they would charge Rs. 4000 for the two months course. One of the problems Lalo’s family faced was transport. How would they go to the Ashram everyday when they did not have any vehicle? Therefore, now we also needed to arrange transport for them - which would cost Rs. 3000.

Our next step was to spread awareness of the need and raise funds for the financial obligations. We didn’t want to ask our parents for the funds because we wanted the people around us to realise this need and contribute for the same. Our team spoke to our entire school and motivated the students to contribute for this cause. Children brought old newspapers from their homes and we were able to collect 525 kgs of pasti, which after selling fetched us Rs.5000. We went to one of the meetings held at the Rotary Club for the Rotarians. There we shared about our project through a presentation followed by motivating songs sung by us. To our delight, people were challenged and the Rotary Club pledged Rs. 10,000, which would meet the need to provide hearing aids for the eight deaf people. At last our parents and our very helpful teachers also pooled in their contributions, which came out to be a total of Rs. 16,900. We are now in the process of helping these children. However, this is not the end... we are now going to continue helping more children that we come across with health issues and spread the awareness to ‘HEAL THE WORLD’.