Food Security India Project #48172

1m meals for excluded women & children

by Apne Aap USA

Project Report | Apr 25, 2023
Food supplies continue to vulnerable girls & women

By Praveen Kumar | Program Manager

Girls studying on tin trunks in Sundarbans

Radhika lives with her mother under the bridge near Kidderpore’s red-light area in Kolkata. She and her mother are from Sundarbans, one of the poorest districts in India. Due to hurricanes and cyclones, half the year, the population is flooded out and cut off from basic supplies, even clean drinking water, as the salty ocean water is not fit for drinking. They live in extreme poverty, and human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation are rampant.

When Radhika was six years old, her father remarried, leaving her mother to raise her and her seven siblings alone. Due to their overwhelming poverty and hunger, Radhika’s mother left for the city turning to daily wage work and pitching a plastic sheet under the bridge for her children to live in. Then Covid hit, and she lost her livelihood, and Radhika and her younger siblings began to starve. Traffickers showed up to compel Radhika’s mother to sell her.

Luckily Radhika had joined the Apne Aap community classroom program in October 2022. Our team quickly set up a supply chain to make sure that Radhika, her mother, and siblings got food and a computer to continue studying.

Radhika’s mother is learning to be a seamstress and our field staff will support her to start a tailoring shop. store.

Since Covid started we have supported more than 500,000 women and girls with food, medicines, and education support. Now with your help we continue to provide the vital lifeline of food and education as vulnerable girls like Radhika and vulnerable women like Radhika’s mother transition out of food.

From January 2023 till now, we have distributed 38,500 meals to 2325 women and children in Bihar, Delhi, and West Bengal. This takes the total number of meals distributed through our Covid #1MillionMeals food drive to 13.85 Million Meals for 59,2554 women and children.

Our support for the education of 2,755 children, ranging from preschool to college-age children, also continues as does our sewing classes in Kolkata and Bihar. 64 girls have started their own businesses or joined a tailoring shop after graduating from our sewing classes this year.

Our classes under the Hastings Bridge in Kolkata

The family under the bridge

Under the bridge classes by Apne Aap

Links:

Permalink

Dec 19, 2022
Christmas celebrations at Apne Aap

By Praveen Kumar | Program Manager

Christmas gifts

We had a special pre-Christmas celebration with the women and children of tfe Forbesganj red-light area this year. It marked a victory over the three tough Covid years. We played games, sat in a circle, sang songs, and ate together. Normally meals include rice, lentils, and vegetables. This year our Christmas feast had Veg Biryani, Egg Curry- rice,Pulao, and a special sweet-Kheer, with special bread-Puri.

Each victory has been girl by girl, woman and woman. Thanks to you, we stand strong.

In the last three months, we distributed 300,600 meals to 13,447 women and children in Bihar, Delhi, and West Bengal . This takes the total number of meals distributed through our Covid #1MillionMeals food drive to 13.1 Million Meals for 5,85,688 women and children. In addition, we distributed 4,500 sanitary pads in this quarter.

Our support for the education of 452 children, ranging from preschool to college-age children, also continues as does our sewing classes in Kolkata and Bihar. 26 girls have started their own businesses or joined a tailoring shop after graduating from our sewing classes this year. Our latest business initiative is a food truck in Delhi run by a cooperative of 11 women.

The women and children who benefit from our program are victims of sex-trafficking, Rohingya refugees and from extremely vulnerable, marginalized communities and oppressed castes. Our consistent support with food, education and help to start small businesses has meant the difference of life and death to many in the precarious months following Covid.

Food prices continue to rise as does housing. With your help we intend to continue with our#1MillionMeals food drive, support for education and help women transition to sustainable livelihoods.

I will share a small story about 14-year old Janaki ( name changed). Her mother had married and moved away leaving Janaki in the care of her grandmother. The grandmother had been evicted by her landlord during Covid and the two were living under a plastic sheet near the Apne Aap community centre. A trafficker offered the grandmother a lumpsum to take Janaki away. Luckily both of them have been coming daily to eat at the Apne Aap community centre. Janaki shared her grandmother's plans with our team members. We were able to intervene and help Janaki get into school. This was possible because we were in touch with them thanks to the food in the centre.

Today Janaki is a school going student like other girls her age. You can learn more at apneaap.org

Links:

Permalink

Aug 18, 2022
#1MillionMeals Update

By Nicole Palmetto | Assistant

This year we distributed 603,600 meals to 27,386 women and children in Bihar, Delhi, and West Bengal among the marginalized communities, oppressed castes, and refugee communities of the Sapera, Perna, Singhi, Katputli, and the Rohingya. 50.5% of beneficiaries are children. In addition, we distributed almost 7,000 sanitary pads.
We have provided education classes to 746 children this year, ranging from preschool to college-age children, through a multi-pronged approach, including sponsorship in mainstream schools, payment of college tuition, coaching classes, and after-school help with homework. In addition, we support a children's library in a Delhi slum and a mobile library that goes with books to different red-light areas in Kolkata.
We have ongoing sewing classes in Kolkata and Bihar for 40 women. In addition, we have supported a women's cooperative in Delhi to start a food truck.
Children studying at our centers are from marginalized communities and castes. Poverty is rampant in the communities we support, so all our centers provide access to food. Mid-Day meals during school, for some, are the only meals the children receive all day. Meals include rice, lentils, vegetables, and salad. Meals are provided through Apne Aap's #1MillionMeal's program. Food is cooked and eaten in a circle with their peers. Feasts were organized for the children on holidays, serving them Veg Biryani, Egg Curry- rice, Pulao, and Kheer. The children enjoy the food and eating together very much.
Apne Aap's team reports a significant decrease in the number of women and girls in prostitution, the population of women and children living in red light areas, the number of traffickers, and the number of households. In addition, there has been an increase in ration cards, Government IDs, and Voter IDs provided by Apne Aap to red light areas.
Through the efforts of the Apne Aap team, many of the traffickers have been arrested by the police and sent to jail. Many brothels have shut down. We are near the day when red-light areas will be completely closed. With your help, we can continue to increase our goal and eradicate the system of prostitution by empowering, supporting, and feeding vulnerable women and children across India.

Links:

Permalink

‹ 1 2 3 4 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.