Nav-Jeevan

Annual Report 2021

The first part is written by the chairwoman of Nav Jeevan Sanstha in India

By Aneeta Patel

Now that we've stepped into 2022 it is time to look back at the last year. It has been a tumultuous year for us as it has been for the whole year. At the start of 2021 the Government gave us permission to restart school because the number of Covid cases were going down. That was good news for all of us. After a year of enforced distance education our children could finally return to the classroom.

I know distance education has been the norm for most of the world but for our students it's a different story. Our children come from the poorest of the poor homes and have no access to basic amenities like balanced food, water or electricity let alone the internet. Many of them come from the deepest jungles around Nagpur where to get cellular service you must climb up the tallest tree! And even if the family is fortunate enough to have a smart phone it is in the hands of the bread winner who is away slaving to earn a daily wage. The child obviously has no or limited access to it!

The children came back to the school in droves and teaching began. But it was a short-lived dream. With the start of the dreaded second wave the Government once again ordered that all educational institutions must close. We were left with the unenviable task of ensuring that all the children were safely returned to their parent's care – even if it involved driving them deep in tiger infested jungles hundreds of kilometres away.

It's now been two years since the children have missed schooling. It is as if these two years have been wiped off their educational lives. When they finally returned this year, it was painfully obvious. Many of them, even those in middle school, have completely forgotten how to read. To begin with English is not their native language. But to succeed in today's world it is essential that they learn it. We firmly believe that if our children become fluent in English and learn working with computers they will get a job – even if they do not finish their formal education!

But their only access to English is in the school. Their parents and most of their contemporaries are uneducated and certainly cannot speak in English. So today we are faced with the uphill task of re-educating the children with the basics. And the worst part is that according to the Government we cannot allow children to repeat the year. So we try to give the children as much basic knowledge as possible, along with two years of schooling in the few remaining months of the school year!

During these lockdown years we have had a few students who had no place to go and were staying with us. Little Gaurav came to us when he was four years old. He was brought to us by his neighbours. His father had died. His mother had remarried and the new husband did not want to care for another man's child. He threatened to sell Gaurav if the child continued to live in his house. The neighbours seeing the bleak situation rescued the child and brought him to us. Initially in the first year his maternal uncle would take him home during the holidays. He doesn't anymore since he's in jail for some crime he committed.

Surprisingly given all this Gaurav is a very happy well settled little boy. Today he is eight years old and doing very well academically. He is very bright and does well in all his subjects. He also is very attentive to his teachers and takes instructions well. We were able to concentrate on special classes for these little ones who were left in our care. (picture Gaurav and Moksh)

Six-year-old Moksh is another child in our care. His father deserted his mother. She couldn't care for the child as she has to work very hard to eke out a living doing menial jobs in Wardha. She entrusted her son to our care. The child is shy but seems to be bright. He is in the first class.

Fathers deserting their families seems to be a common theme. Seven-year-old Saish was living in Mumbai with his mother. After the father left the mother having no other skills was also forced to menial labour in the big city. She could not look after the child and he was left on his own for long periods of time in the slum where they resided. Somebody told the mother about our school and the fact that we had a hostel where the children were taken good care of. She brought him to us with great difficulty. The child is very smart but being from the metropolis tends to use a lot of foul language. I was initially worried about this, but our trustworthy warden told me not to worry she would set him right and she certainly did! The child craves love and attention which we are trying to give him.

Karan who is now in class ten also came to us from a remote village when he was 5 or 6 years old. Karan's parents had died and his relatives were too poor to look after him. They somehow managed to bring him to us and he's been with us ever since. Karan unfortunately is not academically inclined. He's a tribal and is very physically fit. Prior to the pandemic he used to win a lot of inter school wrestling competitions even against schools with children from the well to do strata. He wants to join the army and we are hoping that we can help him do that.

Ashish also is from a distant village close to Karan. His mother died and his father remarried. The new wife didn't want Ashish to live with them so Ashish would wander around the village doing menial chores to earn some money. He was only 7. The neighbours would take pity on him and let him eat whatever scraps of food they had left over. The village schoolteacher saw his plight and brought him to us. Ashish is good at his studies. He is studying for his 12th Board exams in a nearby school. He wants to become an engineer and we want to support him in that.

Nav-Jeevan's policy is to help our children till such time that they stand on their own two feet and tell us they don't need our help. We've done that for many of our kids. We have three girls studying nursing whom we support. Another two girls who are studying in Junior college who still live with us and we will continue to support in their ongoing education.

Anil (left), a gypsy boy has been with us since he was 2 years old. He is now in college but still lives in our hostel. He is interning in our accounts department and earning a little pocket money.

According to Government rules we are not permitted to have children in the hostel during the lock down. But these children are different. For them it's not a hostel but a home. Nonetheless we had to be discreet about it in case neighbours complained. We also had to be super careful about sanitizing the premises. We had discontinued all outside servants. Each time groceries or vegetables were delivered we immediately had to spray the area with disinfectants.

From August classes 8 to 10 were allowed to be reopened. Then began the humungous job of transporting the children from the far away villages back to the school. The parents couldn't afford to conduct PCR tests on them so when we got the children, they had to be isolated until we were able to get necessary tests done on them.

From mid-December we were allowed to open the lower classes. We doubled our teaching efforts trying to bring the children up to speed and make up the precious time they have lost because of this virus.

But then January comes and Omicron raises its ugly head. From the 7th of January we were again told by the Government to shut down the school till February 15th . School bodies all over Maharashtra state resisted against this directive from the Government. Especially when we were told that examinations would be conducted off-line. Teachers objected vehemently on how exams can be held when students have not physically attended classes for the past two years?

The Maharashtra schools Association announced that they would open the schools from Monday, the 17th of January 2022 in defiance of the Government directive. Not all schools will participate as many will wait to see how the Government reacts. We presently have 69 children in the hostel. Government has not asked us yet to send the children back, so we are going to conduct classes for the hostel children to at least help them make up for the time lost.

Running Nav-Jeevan Sanstha is a difficult task particularly with the Government watching our every move. Now the Government for reasons unknown is against organizations which receive foreign funds. On December 25th.2021, they cancelled Mother Theresa Mission's permission to receive foreign funds quoting some irregularity in their accounts. The country was in an uproar. Some opposition leaders said that when Mother Theresa won the Nobel Peace Prize India celebrated and now they are trying to penalize the very institution she created. Finally sense prevailed and the permission was finally restored. But as of date 6,000 organizations all over India have lost their permission. We were fortunate and our permission has been renewed for a further five years!

In January we received a young man who came from Holland through Annelies van de Ven. Thias is just 20 years old but is a breath of fresh air. I'm often sceptical of young people who visit us from abroad. They are usually not accustomed to the Indian culture and not willing to listen or adapt with the children. This young man is very different. He immediately connected with the children. He began eating with them and playing with them. He even got them to teach him rudimentary Hindi words and learnt games which are typical of India. The children were very happy to have him in their midst.

After being with us for a while one thing he said really touched me - “look at me I was born with a silver spoon but these children who have had to face so much hardship in their lives still manage to stay so happy and have welcomed me.” Thias has said that he would actively do crowd funding amongst his family and friends when he returns to Holland to help our organization. I've always felt however much we may talk about Nav-Jeevan and what we do here but only when you visit and see the place for yourself do you realize the depth of what we are doing to change the lives of the children in our care.

 - - -  So far the contribution of Aneeta Patel - - - 

Passed Examens in 2021

In 2021 24 students of Dr. T.S. Wilkinson High School passed their diploma High School.

Construction of the van het Hostel

The construction of the hostel for boys, funded by AFAS foundation, has been seriously delayed. Initially it fell under the rural areas outside Nagpur and we had permission from the 'rural' authorities to build. We started with the foundation but had to stop again. In the meantime, it has emerged that due to the ever-expanding relocation of construction in the outer area of the city limits, the area of our construction has been deemed a city within the city limits. Hence, we now fall under the agency known as the Nagpur Improvement Trust. This means that the purchased land must be registered with the City Survey Office, which is the registered office of all land within the city limits. We are now waiting for a building permit from the Nagpur Improvement trust.

Further Education of the Children

A few years ago we decided to pay for the further education for a number of children who really have no one at all. We try to continue this by selecting a few kids each year who have no other place to go when they finish high school. We are looking for sponsors for this and try to get a supplement to this through one of the Dutch funds.

For example, Sunil Yadav has been trained as a refrigeration technician and a number of girls are training to become nurses: Saloni Dhurve is in the third and final year and Simran Shrivas and Isha Dhurve are in the second grade. Yash Khobragade did the preliminary training for the army and Anil Yadav is in the third year of the BCCA (Bachelor of Commerce and Computer Application) course.

A number of students have also been selected for the coming year, subject to sufficient funding:
- twice the nursing course (third year)
- once the nursing course (first year)
- once the preliminary training for the army
- B-commerce and chartered accountant (first year)
- Engineering

Building Maintenance

The Imelda Nolet Foundation made it possible for us to renovate the window frames of the building and have the building painted on the outside.

Corona Vaccination at School

The students who are 15-18 year old were vaccinated against corona at school.

Christmas Performance

Christmas performance at Dr. T.S. Wilkinson Memorial High School of Nav-Jeevan. The holidays of various religions are celebrated with the aim of teaching the children tolerance and understanding of each other's faith. All children received a gift.

Financial report Nav-Jeevan foundation 2021 (in Euro)

	31-12-20
Current account balance	4.293,32
INCOME	2021
Calder Holding doubling	20.520,00
Employees Calder Holding, private	20.385,00
Private individuals Belgium	1.440,00
Private individuals Germany	480,00
Private individuals England	10.000,00
Private individuals The Netherlands, others	4.822,50
Protestant Congregation Samen op weg Berlicum-Rosmalen	98,45
RinZvest BV	2.000,00
Sponsorkliks	77,16
Bear for Help Foundation	3.500,00
Advocacy Foundation for the (very) young child	5.000,00
den Brinker Foundation	7.800,00
Geef Foundation	95,00
van Helden Tucker Foundation	1.500,00
Imelda Nolet Foundation	7.024,00
Meros Foundation	300,00
Total	85.042,11
EXPENSES	2021
Costs ING	227,70
Nav Jeevan Sanstha India	83.084,00
Total	83.311,70
	31-12-21
Current account balance	6,023,73

An Overview of the Donors of Nav-Jeevan in 2021

(see also the financial overview)

Through sponsorkliks came in € 77,16.

We hope that 2022 will be a year in which the corona disappears and the children can go back to school normally.

On behalf of the children and staff of Nav Jeevan Sanstha we would like to thank you very much for your donations.

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