Sona's Blog

                           An Unexpected Bonanza We keep saying there are many Indians but “We hardly win anything, especially in sports”, is a common comment by many. One must know sports is something that requires a lot of investment in nutrition and health. This is what happened with Bhakti and her association with Sona Sarovar Trust. 17-year-old Bhakti lives in a small village called  Bhogavati, in Kolhapur Her father is a daily wage earner, a labourer & mother works as a Farm Labourer. They can't afford to pay fees for the Club to practice in a pool & diet food so Bhakti goes to a nearby river called Bhogavati to practice, which could be very dangerous. She has participated at the District & State level. She had been selected for National Level Competition which was held in Telangana. 4 years back we paid for the Club Membership & diet food and got her a swimsuit required for competition so that she could learn to swim professionally and keep away from dirty wa

 Right To Education We get many such students from BMC/ village schools. Even VII standard students can't read Hindi/Marathi/English alphabets. To teach them the alphabet to complete the course for exams is an impossible task. We do our best to empower them in the best way possible.   We at Sona Sarovar Trust realized that the main cause of poverty was illiteracy. In the underprivileged segment, parents are illiterate and extremely poor to send their children to public school or for tuition. The result was children dropping out of school. Parents would also encourage their children to earn rather than learn so the trust started working on education and adopted nearby slums.    Will the leaders be willing to think out of their box to recognise, understand, and address these critical issues?

 Studying & Dancing With Joy Once a choreographer offered to teach these children so that they could dance in Bhaidas Hall during their Summer Function.10 children started going for the rehearsals. Once the Trustee got a call from Choreographer that Salma Khan (name changed). who was the lead dancer, was absent for a few days.   Someone was sent to her house to find out the reason for her whereabouts. Since their house was locked, they couldn't gather any information. The neighbours informed us that police had come & put all of them behind the bars since they were beggars from Bangladesh & it was a case of illegal immigration. The police officer informed that all adults & infants were in Jail & 3 adolescents were in Dongri Remand Home.   My daughter Ms Priya Kumar was ready to adopt them. We tried contacting social workers for the children's bail but were told that only a legal guardian could bail them out. She was told that the bail of the elders was approv

The fact is most of us do celebrate birthdays and do the same for our little ones. Very few however think of it as an opportunity to spread joy to others too. We have so many underprivileged children in India. They do have a lot of life lessons to teach us too. This is why we always encourage sharing and caring with them to make our next generation more humane and loving. Birthdays That Spread Joy To All Some parents bring their little ones to celebrate their birthdays to teach them lessons of caring & sharing, and some donate food in the memory of their loved ones. This makes us and the people we work with happy too. My friend’s son migrated to Canada. She used to miss her granddaughter Mitali, so every year she would bring cake & food on her birthday for the slum children.  सुख बढ़ जाता, दुःख घट जाता , जब वो है बंट जाता   When loosely translated this means happiness increases and sorrow decreases when we share with others

                               Little Pieces of Chocolates  We often feel the underprivileged are waiting to be given goodies that they lap up but hardly ever share. This is completely false, in my experience and observation. I would like to share one such episode with them that made me feel joyous in realising the nature of humanity among the so-called underprivileged. Sometime back, my friend from the USA got me a box of chocolates. I counted the chocolates and realised I could only give them to half of the kids. I did not know what to do. Without thinking more, however, I carried the box to class and was very happy to see only senior kids in the class so started distributing the chocolates to them. Before I could finish junior kids joined too. This put me in a fix. I did not wish to seem partial to anyone. It is said when intents are pure, the universe does respond. That's exactly what happened to me that day.  A girl nearby understood and immediately rose to the occasion. She c