I am sitting in the office of an absolutely incredible women. My lap top is perched on the edge of her desk, there is a small child with a squeaky toy underneath. The toy (a green plastic pineapple) actually functions as a bell, which the incredible women will use if she needs to get the attention of one of her staff. This is because she is the busiest women I have yet to meet in India. And this is quite a statement as women in India are all pretty busy. Although once I did walk into her office to find her laying on the stone floor. She sat up, brushed her hair from her head, complained about the afternoon heat, and then motioned for me to join her, “Bex do you mind? Its too hot for chairs.” Air conditioning is not an option for a women who gave up her former job in social policy development for real hands on grass-roots change. She applies this duality to all of her actions – well educated, impassioned and with so much energy she dances with being overwhelming, but ultimately, she uses this power to achieve her dreams. And even these she argues, are “shared dreams”.
She is Urmi Basu, a self-divorced Bengali women who choose her passions and her convictions over a traditional family life. Her twenty year old son, is the only indicator of her age, because her energy and drive is surely from a women much younger in years. She performs miracles which she denies. She transforms lives, although insists her role is merely a 'facilitator'. If anyone in Kolkata is on their way to sainthood, then Urmi is surely in the running:
Urmi is founder and director of New Light; a creche-cum night shelter which with the help of her fellow 'dreamers' she established seven years ago in Kolkata's Kalighat district. The center is easily reached by following a series of local famous landmarks – first there is the massive Kali Temple in the heart of the pedestrianized market area, second there is the famous Mother Teresa House, Kalighat, home for the Dying and Destitute. From here take a right onto a street covered in chai stalls, puga stalls and flower garlands, and on the left you will find an unusual amount of young women, standing or sitting, all wearing bright colours, beautiful saris, kohl decorated eyes, bindis, gold earrings and bracelets and smelling of fresh perfume. Walk through the young women into a small alleyway, lined with small 'chicken hut' like rooms, with wire windows in front of tiny beds, and past the loose dirty curtains hanging down to indicate whether or not business is in progress. From here you can ask any old man, women or child where 'New Light' is and you will be directed into a tiny courtyard full of piles of washing. Follow the small stone stair case up to a converted roof top and you will find yourself face to face with brightly painted murals, piles of tiny shoes, and a hive of happiness - Welcome to New Light – quite literally a 'bright light' in the heart of the Kolkata's oldest red-light district.
Urmi founded New Light to provide a service which simply did not exist – to provide a care centre for the children who have no other family members to care for them while their mothers are servicing clients. It has since evolved according to need and now its functions far beyond that of creche, providing a safe haven for children to come and study, play or socialise after school hours (aka mothers working hours); open more hours than there are in a day, and more days then there are in a week, New Light never closes. In the past seven years it has provided shelter to several hundreds of children, and currently has 132 under its supervision. It employs four teachers to provide remedial classes for the children, many of whom have been denied the right to education or have only received intermittent schooling. For those who have had no experience with the formal education system, this special attention helps to bring the children up to standard.
Urmi is busy explaining to some Spanish visitors what will happen once the children at New Light reach the age of 18; basically she will not accept just 'providing' but at 'improving' and 'facilitating' until even the poorest children have the ability to realise their Rights. Bright children are encouraged to apply for private schools; New Lights teachers provide extra tuition, and New Light provides financial sponsorship. I listen as Urmi explains that she wants to continue to provide this support after the children have left the center. She is not into creating expectations which will not be realised, “if they want to form businesses, then they will need seed money and we will provide that seed money”.I want all of these children to have the very best of education. If my son wants to go to university to study law then I want these children to be able to make that same choice.
When asked about Soma Home – the home for the girls living in a residential area outside of Kalighat – she enthusiastically begins to talk about the style of Katark dancing which some of the older girls are learning:
It is incredibly complex. The girls must learn to count a rhythm which is in counterpoint to the rhythm on the percussion, splitting it into triplets or quintuplets and then tap it out with their feet.
The 32 girls at the Soma home are living outside of Kalighat for their own protection – they are at the prime age for being bought by their mothers interested clients. And this generational change – out of the sex industry – is exactly what New Light is about. It is not just turning around the lives of boys and girls “who have had experiences which a women of 20 years of age would have problems dealing with” but of real community development...of creating opportunities for Kalighat's young beyond being forced to sell their bodies:
In ten years time I want Kalighat to be full of skilled men and women. I want our young people to be able to realise their dreams, form cooperatives, open their own fashion boutiques, flower shops, travel centers if thats what they want.
She turns to me and asks, "Do you know of any French Volunteers who can bake bread?” (I guess she has an idea for some of the older children to set up a bakery..) When asked about funding, she brushes off the question. She will find a way and quite simply is too driven to stop working to fulfill these 'dreams':
Yes we will continue to grow in every direction, because we are about community development and change, and we cannot stop here!While Urmi talks, her captivated Spanish audience nod. I sit in the corner silently typing away. I am compiling the annual report for New Light. At the moment I am trying to write the section about the new HIV/AIDS hospital which will service the local community. The opening ceremony was last week – it was blessed by four different religions; Hindi, Jainism, Islam and Christian.
Throughout the afternoon women, girls and her staff have been coming in to ask her advice or to seek help. So far today I have heard of three young children who have been left abandoned at their village home for three months after they mother disappeared. I have heard of one 14 year old Nepali girl who was sold a week ago, but amazingly managed to phone her father before she was locked in a darkened room just a stones throw from this office. Through communication with an anti-trafficking organisation in Nepal, New Light was contacted and the girl located. A young women of 21, draped in orange cloth and decorated in gold, came into the office with her four year old beaming son. She was on her way to work and has finally reached the hard decision that she must leave her son at New Light - permanently. The young mother was married at 15, pimped by her husband for five years and now left abandoned in an industry which is all she knows. She is beautiful and will be able to work for some more years yet. She has courage to realise the potential for her son. New Light is currently operating at maximum capacity “I could fill a new center in one hour” she tells me, but of course, just like the other cases, Urmi agrees. She wants to send this little boy to a good school in Darjeeling, “we really have a chance to turn his life around, he is young enough that he will forget the trauma of this childhood.”
These 'stories' surround me as I sit here typing and thinking and listening. Even the tiny six year old sitting under the desk, playing with the squeaky pineapple, has just been 'rescued'. Today is her first day at New Light. Her mother is a sex worker and has been in hospital for several months, she recently contacted Urmi concerned for her abandoned child's welfare. The little six year old was being sexually abused.
Its now dark and the stream of visitors into the office has slowed down although the flow of children is now at its peak. One of the practical challenges of today is how to arrange the passports for ten children without birth certificates; ten of the children have been invited to visit Germany and Spain on a three month cultural tour. Urmi slides down into her chair.
Bex I have a sink full of dirty dishes, a load of wet washing waiting to be hung on the line another load waiting to put in the machine, and about ten water bottles to be filled.
I tell her to stop thinking so much; it might rain anyway. But really I am amazed. Unlike her dishes and laundry her work cannot wait. Everyday the situations she has to deal with have to be solved immediately. “If I have a child who needs help, that child will need help now, and not in a week or a month.” Indeed, she has a large battle on her hands, which she takes with an immaculately dressed stride; she is in a continuous battle against Indian bureaucracy – which as an eloquent debater that refuses to be defeated, she fights with the professed skill of a supreme court judge.
I am really learning so much from sitting in this chair. I wonder if Wonder Woman came from Bengal?
There is a cheeky squeak from under our desk and a teacher appears to carry the latest resident of New Light to class.
For more information about New Light, including some great photos, visit the following links:
1 comment:
Hi Bex
The passports for the children you mentioned- the passport office was kind enough to accept nine applications just the other day, while in the case of one boy the application could not be submitted as both his parents are dead and Urmi needs to get herself declared the boy's guardian through a court of law. I am lucky and proud to be associated with newlight as an off-and-on volunteer! : Sunil
Post a Comment