Meridian Cares

It costs so little to completely change the life of a child, and in this world where everything seems to go so wrong, you can help something go right. As you read the story below, if you are moved to help, please do. You can make a difference that changes not only one life, but generations to follow.

Please join with other Meridian readers in sponsoring a child (or children) by clicking here.

Several years ago, I had an interesting experience in a very small leprosy colony in India, the Mulgavadi Colony.  It was an unusual colony in that there were only about eight remaining colony members. The colony, which originally had more than 40 people, had watched one by one, their friends and neighbors die from leprosy complications.

This colony was also unusual in that the colony members were Christian.  Normally, in India, the vast majority of people are Hindu, but this small group of people had been converted to Christianity decades before.

The Mulgavadi Colony is literally in the middle of nowhere.  There are no close villages anywhere.  Sometime in the past, the government had built a row of concrete rooms for them.  The rooms were all connected by common walls.  Each room housed a family.  There were no bathrooms, no kitchens, just one little room—perhaps 7’ by 6 ‘.

When we came to work with this community, one very small woman, named Saroja, typically would scoot up to me and lay her head against my legs.  She was tiny.  She probably wouldn’t have reached 4 feet high if she could stand.  She had lost one leg though, so I never saw her standing.  She lived on the ground.  She would scootch around on her derriere using her hands to lift her up enough to push forward a few inches.

She had lost all her fingers to leprosy, so she only had rounded stumps on the end of each arm.  One eye had been deformed by the disease.  Her voice was high-pitched and squeaky.  If you weren’t looking at her when she spoke, you might think you were hearing a small child talk.

Padma usually came with us to this colony.  Padma had started some small micro-businesses with the colony members and so came every few months to check on them and offer any help they needed. On this particular night, after scootching up to me and laying her head on my leg, Saroja began to talk very excitedly.  She kept pointing to her room.  The room was dark. Saroja was now pulling at the pants of my churidar, clutching them with both of her hand stumps.   I wondered where she wanted me to go?  She’d pull on my pants, then use her arm stumps to lift herself up enough to scoot a couple of inches.  She kept repeating this maneuver.  I finally let her lead me into the dark room that was her home.

Saroja’s home had only one small cot, on which she slept.  There was nothing else in the room.  As she talked excitedly, gesturing with her hands, I could make out a light bulb sitting on her cot, in the dark.  She was now getting more and more excited, talking a million miles an hour and gesturing excitedly with her hands.

I don’t speak Tamil.  I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to tell me.  But she kept gesturing toward the ceiling.  There was a small glimmer of light coming in the door from someone’s flashlight outside,  And then I saw what she was trying to tell me.  On the ceiling was a bare electrical outlet for a bulb.  I immediately figured out what she was so desperately trying to communicate.

Somehow, she had gotten a light bulb.  But she had no way to screw it into its receptacle in the ceiling, which was nine feet high.  Consequently, she had been living in darkness, hoping someone would come along that could connect her light to the power source.  I climbed up on the cot but couldn’t come anywhere close to reaching the top of the ceiling.

I went back outside to where Padma was speaking to the rest of the patients in the colony.  I told them about Saroja’s dilemma.  Everyone came into the tiny room and tried to reach the ceiling, but none of us could reach.  One of our volunteers, who had been a cheerleader, suggested we form a human pyramid.  We got onto all fours on the dirt floor of Saroja’s room.  Our smallest volunteer then climbed up on our backs and was able to reach the ceiling.  The bulb was screwed in with a flourish.  Light lit up everyone there.  We all smiled and laughed as we disentangled ourselves from our “pyramid.”

Fast forward 17 years.  We are just finishing a big, beautiful campus in Bihar.  This campus will incredibly have the capacity of educating 700 children from leprosy colonies.  Bihar is arguably the poorest state in India.  The poverty there is overwhelming, even to me—and I’ve been working in leprosy colonies in India for 23 years.  You’d think I’d be used to poverty by now!  But Bihar is so far behind other states of India, that its poverty grabs you by the throat.

This new school will be a beacon in the midst of this crushing poverty.  It will educate children from 22 different leprosy colonies,  These are kids who have no hope in life, resigned to lives as their parents have lived—essentially by begging.  Many of them have already become beggars.  They have no opportunity for medical or dental care, or even for daily food.  They have to sneak into nearby fields to use the bathroom as the colonies have no bathrooms.  They have to be careful though, because if caught they can be beaten mercilessly by the farmers who own the fields.

Rising Star Outreach began working in this state five years ago,  We started by taking over a small school called the Little Flower School.  It had not quite 100 students.  Today it has 308 students.  The waiting list for children to get into our school has been long ever since we took over the Little Flower School.

The excitement of the community when they saw a big new campus going up, has been palpable.  Nearly every day, parents come by to plead for us to accept their children into the new school.  Our challenge is that we don’t have the funds to accept any more children than we currently have.

It costs us $90 each month for the housing, food, medical and dental care, for the housemothers, teachers and school supplies for each child.  We have a sponsorship program where families can send $30 a month to sponsor a child.  Thus, we need three sponsors to support each new child.

This campus feels to me as if we have a “light bulb”, but cannot connect it into its power source.  It is difficult to tell parents that they must wait a little longer until we can find enough sponsors for their child to attend, particularly when they can see the school buildings being completed.  Some of these parents and children have been waiting for five years.

That’s where Meridian Magazine comes in.  Scot and Maurine, who have been to our project in Bihar, graciously agreed to appeal to Meridian Readers to help sponsor our students.  We told Meridian that we would bring a new student in for every two sponsors they found for us.  We are confident that others of our donors will make up the remaining $30 per child.

Each student who studies in our school returns to their families during vacations and teaches their families the things that they have been learning.  The families begun to realize that when their child graduates, they will be able to go to college and one day support the entire family.

Our new campus to me is a bit like Saroja’s light bulb.  It has so much potential to affect lives.  Our new sponsors are like our human pyramid that came together to get Saroja’s light bulb connected to the power source.  Saroja’s bulb, once connected filled her home with light.  Our students, once connected to our program, have their lives filled with light and opportunity.

I hope you can join with us in creating a “human pyramid” in Bihar.  My dream is to fill every seat in the school.  At the moment it seems impossible.  But I have learned over the years that when caring people come together nothing is impossible!

We like to say at Rising Star Outreach that every child has a story.  Our volunteers are constantly sharing amazing stories from the children they interact with.  I asked our school social counselor in Bihar to visit some of the children on our waiting list so that I could share their stories with you.  Here is a story she sent yesterday:

Meena Kumari (not her real name), a bright-eyed six-year-old, lives in the Sitamarhi Leprosy Colony with her paternal grandparents and siblings. Her life has been marked by challenges from a young age. Her mother left when she was just four, abandoning her and her siblings. Her father, Sandeep, struggled with mental health issues, making it difficult for him to care for the children.  He could find no employment, since he carried a double stigma: both leprosy and mental illness. Both are considered to be a curse of God.

Facing these hardships, Meena’s grandparents did their best to provide for their grandchildren. However, the colony’s limited resources and the stigma surrounding leprosy made everyday life a struggle.  Their biggest challenge is finding enough money to buy food for the children.  They can only pray that the children don’t get sick, because there is no money for doctors or medicine.

Meena’s grandparents’ only hope is to find a school who will accept her.  Most schools do not let children from leprosy colonies attend their school.  Meena’s grandparents  had heard of the Rising Star Outreach of India School, which offered hope and education to children like her. But then they learned that the waiting list to get into the school made hope of acceptance nearly impossible.   She longed to learn, play, and make friends. Hoping against hope, they added Meena’s name to the list.

Meena’s name is still on the waitlist. It has been more than a year.  She is eagerly awaiting  the day she will be accepted, hoping to escape the cycle of poverty and stigma.

Meena’s grandparents, though aged and weary, encouraged her to hold on to her dreams. Her grandfather, a kind-eyed man, would often tell her stories of his own childhood, inspiring her not to give up hope, and to strive for a better life.  With the simple faith of a child, she continues to pray every day that she will be accepted.

Help us to get little Meena into school (and maybe even her siblings!).  Join our human pyramid to lift up this sweet child high enough for the light to come into her life that will transform her life!

Please join with other Meridian readers in sponsoring a child (or children) by clicking here.