Category Archives: Projects

The Guru Krupa Foundation Award to Anisha

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In the rural area of southern India where Anisha is located, marginalized farmers and landless families, often headed by single women, struggle to meet their most basic needs. Approximately 70% of these people are members of the lowest social caste in India and their children often lack adequate nutrition and health care. Without extra support, many of these children drop out of school and become trapped in the child labor sector of the local mining industry.  These families suffer from the results of the Green Revolution of the early 1960s in India. Farmers were encouraged to adopt the use of commercial fertilizers and pesticides, as well as non-native seeds. Soils were depleted across India and many farmers were forced to leave their homelands for slums in India’s major cities.

Four years ago, a partnership began between Anisha and a private foundation located in New York state, the Guru Krupa Foundation.  The Foundation took the step to support year one of Anisha’s Kitchen Garden Project in 2016, a four-year program designed to teach over 1400 middle school students at 23 participating schools to grow organic kitchen gardens at their homes.  They also expressed the intention to fund the project for three more years if the terms of the grant were satisfied.  We are currently at the end of year four of the Kitchen Garden Project and feel very grateful to the Guru Krupa Foundation for its continuing support of the project.   The  Foundation has contributed a total of $40,000 over these four years to allow Anisha to operate its four-year educational project that has had a dramatic impact on the lives of its participating students and their families.

These students live in the Martalli Region of Karnataka State in Southern India. Their families struggle every day with extreme poverty and everything that results from it. They live in a drought-prone area that is also hard-hit by the effects of climate change. Learning to grow small-scale kitchen gardens producing organic vegetables grown from native seeds (initially supplied by Anisha’s own native seed bank) has made a significant difference in improving the standard of living of many families in this area. 

The Guru Krupa Foundation is considering a proposal that would extend the KGP by at least one more year and expand its operation into 30 new schools with 1500 students new to its program.  We  so appreciate the support provided by the Guru Krupa Foundation to help Anisha do its vitally important work!  Please visit their website to learn about their impressive work in both the United States and India – www.guru-krupa.org.

School Supply Giveaway Day in Tijuana

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Imagine having to choose between sending your child to school and providing basic necessities for your family. Sadly, this is the reality for many parents at back-to-school season. Required school supplies and uniforms must be purchased in order for children to attend school. Families with multiple children are especially burdened by the financial demands that come with a new school year. 

Tijuana Family Outreach Project, founded and directed by Mikail Collins of Subud San Diego organizes monthly gatherings for financially struggling families that have no other community support or services. School Supply Giveaway Day has become one of their most highly attended events. At the annual gathering, gifts of backpacks filled with school supplies are presented, a meal is served, and bonds of friendship are strengthened among neighbors. Muchas gracias to Tijuana Family Outreach Project for organizing these monthly gatherings filled with camaraderie and caring, enabling families to receive much-needed charity while maintaining their dignity.

Susila Dharma USA board member Diego Salgado visited this year’s School Supply Giveaway Day and met many local families. Following are testimonies of gratitude from some of the parents in attendance:

“There are many kids who do not attend school because their parents don’t have the means of sending them to school. Even though there are public schools, the parents are still not able to provide for their kids. They’re not able to buy their kids a uniform or shoes. God has provided the sponsors with a magnificent and noble heart. Maybe for the sponsors this is just a simple event but for a lot of us parents and the kids this all comes as a blessing. It is a very big help.” (Griselda, mother of two)

“A pencil or a notebook helps tremendously as many times parents do not have money to buy their kids supplies. I have been in situations in the past where I was not able to buy my kids school supplies. I am currently studying law so this makes us be 3 students at home. So, a backpack is a big blessing. Not only on the physical level but also on an emotional and a spiritual level as well. As a single mother I feel very blessed for my kids to be a part of Casa Matita.” (Griselda, mother of two)

“Seeing the kids smile is the biggest satisfaction… People come from as far as Rosarito and Tecate to attend… Parents usually make a family outing of that one day a month they visit. They also receive donated clothes and shoes, which are laid out before them to take as needed.” (Alma, volunteer and mother of three)

“Casa Matita always offers us support and backpacks for the kids and with several events throughout the year. We have been here for the Day of the Child and for Christmas, where gifts are handed out and a nice meal is prepared. The gatherings are very heartfelt.” (Gladys, mother of three)”

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Tijuana Family Outreach Project

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The Tijuana Family Outreach Project is managed and staffed by Subud San Diego volunteers. The project supports children and their families from El Florido, a low-resource area on the outskirts of Tijuana, Mexico. Called Los Ladrilleros (The Brickmakers), most of the residents live in shacks and work in the local brick plant. Although the children attend the local school, there are very few resources for them.

The project provides community integration for many families who would otherwise be isolated, and offers opportunities for families to receive resources to improve their lives and build relationships with neighbors.

The ongoing projects include:

  • School Supply Giveaway Day,
  • Day of the Child celebration,
  • Easter celebration,
  • Christmas celebration,
…as well as monthly lunches with life-skills workshops facilitated by volunteer psychologists and social workers from a nearby university (past topics: domestic violence prevention, positive parenting). Recently, the project be for extra income.

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International Child Development Programme (ICDP)

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Anita Limbu holding her daughter, Unisa.

Anita Limbu is a single mother with a daughter called Unisa. Unisa suffers from cerebral palsy. Anita does not receive support and love from her family and relatives, so all the responsibility for Unisa lies on her shoulders alone. This mother used to feel a great deal of frustration and burden, but then she had the opportunity to join the ICDP caregiver meetings where she met other mothers whose children were also suffering from cerebral palsy. During the first ICDP sessions she cried a lot, as she was becoming more and more aware of Unisa’s needs that she had been ignoring. She started to see her child as a person rather than a burden and this made her behave in a much more positive way towards her. Anita reported that one day Unisa asked her why she was not beating and scolding her as she used to do before — Anita’s eyes were full of tears while telling about this and realizing how negatively she had been treating her daughter. Her daughter can’t speak but can express her emotions and feelings with her gestures. Anita is now caring and expressing love towards her daughter more than before and she said that Unisa is a great deal happier now. Anita said that she is grateful to have been able to attend the ICDP caregiver meetings and wants to be an example for other mothers with children with disabilities.

International Child Development Programme (ICDP) is a competence-building organization in the field of psycho-social and educational care for children. 

The objective is to work for the healthy development of children worldwide by implementing a simple but effective psychosocial intervention programme that is based on scientific research in child development and that can enhance children’s psychosocial development and wellbeing. ICDP works with children’s caregivers to create a loving, caring and guiding educational environment for children. 

The work is based on the principles that are laid down in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. ICDP is another expression of the same humanitarian spirit as encoded in the CRC. The ethos is to provide for human care through activating empathy, sensitivity and education of both caregivers and their children and by strengthening local initiative. Introducing children’s rights is likely to have a major impact if efforts are also made to activate awareness and deeper bonding to children as persons (Hundeide & Armstrong, 2011).

ICDP is non-political and non-denominational. It may participate directly or indirectly in activities run by other humanitarian organization having corresponding objectives. The point is to sensitize, build competence and confidence in members of a community or an existing child caring system, and then withdraw. The purpose of cooperation with partner organizations is to offer training, educational and moral support, thus ensuring the quality of ICDP work and positive impact on the development of caregivers and children.

By participating in ICDP, caregivers learn general principles of child rearing that are universal and present in most cultures, which makes the programme flexible and culturally adaptable.

Research suggests that human development and the physiological development of the brain, depends on proper interaction between a caring adult and the growing child. In normal circumstances such learning happens naturally, but when families are uprooted through social changes, migration, catastrophes, children losing their parents, or having been numbed by severe deprivation and emotional shock, this care often breaks down and has to be reactivated through skilled help. If children do not receive sufficient love and guidance while they are young, the problem also perpetuates itself because later on they become inadequate parents. ICDP’s focus, therefore, is on trying to break this cycle.

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