Local volunteers go the distance to bring aid to India

Posted: Mar 20, 2010 at 11:14 PM [Mar 20, 2010]

Children in the slums of Varanasi, India recently received a care package from Ann Arbor, thanks to two volunteers who made the nearly 8,000 mile journey. Katie Kirkpatrick and Poppy Goudsmit of Ann Arbor traveled to the city of 1.2 million in early November to visit a project that local nonprofit, Vision Builders, began a partnership with in 2007. Called Kutumb (pronounced Koo-toom, or “family”), the project provides a home and education to orphaned and disadvantaged children in the slums of Varanasi.

The care package held books, home-made quilts, medical supplies and toys, including jump ropes made by Ann Arbor area children during festivities at the Vision Builders 5K Run, Vision Builders’ annual fundraising event. For street children, many of whom are orphaned at a young age and have nothing resembling normal childhood, these gifts are precious beyond their imagination. Says Kirkpatrick, “These kids didn’t have a single toy to play with. During our first visit we pulled out a tennis ball, and they all stared in amazement before running off with it to play a game.”

The Kutumb project is the latest partnership for Vision Builders, which has also supported the development of a school and medical clinic in a remote area near the India-China border, and a home for disadvantaged girls in rural China. Kirkpatrick, co-founder and board president for the group, began the partnership after meeting the founders of Kutumb, Dr. Ashish Kumar Singh and his wife Puja, who gave up comfortable lives to serve the children in the Varanasi slums. At the time, Ashish and his family were living in the small residential school with 23 children, many of whom were rescued from the nearby railway station where they had been living as orphans. Says Kirkpatrick, “When I first met them they were running the school for 20 children on less than $100 per month. What they have been able to do with next to nothing is phenomenal.”

The stories of the children Kirkpatrick first met in 2007 were horrendous. A 9-year-old girl named Geeta had been living in the train station with her mother, and became orphaned when a snake bit her mother. Traumatized and without education, Geeta was withdrawn and had trouble making progress in school. Another resident of Kutumb was a 2-year-old girl named Goon-Goon, who had developmental delays and was generally unresponsive.

Vision Builders provided a grant to the project in 2008 to expand the number of classrooms and staff at the school, begin a meal program to ensure the children served by Kutumb receive at least one healthy meal per day, and to initiate a program helping girls and women in and around Kutumb to receive vocational training. On the recent trip the volunteers were heartened to see signs of progress. The meal program serves an additional 80 children per day, who also receive a half day of school as part of the bargain; and Geeta and Goon-Goon are thriving. “Goon-Goon now does a Bollywood dance routine for anyone who will watch” laughs Kirkpatrick. Geeta has now caught up in her education and is enrolled in a private school (at a cost of $120 per year), and her confidence has grown so much that she is now a mentor to other children.

But for every step forward, there is another hurdle to overcome. On their recent trip Kirkpatrick and Goudsmit discovered that the children’s play area, located on the roof of the school, has been taken over by communications equipment; the landlord who owns the building leased the space to a phone company, who stores the equipment where the schoolchildren once played. This has led to a new charge for Vision Builders - to create a more permanent home for Kutumb. Says Kirkpatrick, “We think we have about a three-year window to work with in which to find a new location for the program - after that the landlord will likely push Dr. Ashish and the school out." Vision Builders is looking ahead to the 2010 Vision Builders 5K Run in May to help reach this goal.

This article was written by my friend, John Koupal, organizer of the Vision Builders 5K Run.

Stefan Szumko prefers to walk 5K, but his wife likes to run. He can be reached at slugwhisperer@gmail.com.