Drops in the Bucket

Looking at the big picture in India is a discouraging exercise. 80% of the population lacks basic access to resources, nearly 75% of the population is functionally illiterate, gender inequality, neglected or abused children, and absolute poverty are entrenched challenges to development. The numbers overwhelm the mind and defy easy solutions. But I am learning the change doesn’t happen in the big picture; change happens in dozens of small pictures. A drop in the bucket makes a ripple, and the ripples from separate drops intersect and compound each other to change the surface of the water. Over the course of the last two weeks, we have visited several NGO’s that are dropping water in the bucket. They begin with education and outreach, focusing on women and children.

Butterflies works in New Delhi to give street children a place to go at night, sends teachers into the streets to engage their children in their own world, and trains them to be proactive in their own health and finances. In a Butterflies night shelter we met boys who dreamed of being engineers, doctors, football (soccer) players, and in one case, a journalist. The boy who said he wanted to be a journalist followed us during our visit, taking pictures to edit into a video and post on the web. He was working for the BBC—Butterfly Broadcasting Company. In a corner of the shelter, two boys served as president and vice president of the Children’s Development Khazana, a functioning bank where the kids could deposit their money (many of them make a few rupees a day hawking things in the street or doing other work in the informal sector). The children elect their own bank leadership and can even take loans out.

In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, we visited a SCINDeA, a network of NGO’s working with tribal women in the villages. By building self-help groups that pool their financial resources and learn to manage their own businesses, they can leverage their new found economic power into greater independence and well-being for their families and improved education for their children. They aren’t getting rich, but they are getting by. Before, many of these women couldn’t afford to provide minimal nutrition for their children and themselves, so getting by is a big step up.

In Andra Pradesh, we visited village preschools run tribal women and men who had been trained through a group called SUCHI. The children attending these centers had been left alone or gone to work with their parents before the schools were established. Now marginalized women who had no power and no respect are earning a living even admired by other villagers. We heard from one woman who was a widow. When her husband died of leukemia, leaving her with three children, she found herself a prisoner in the home of her in-laws, who refused to allow her to even visit her own family. When  SUCHI came to the village looking for likely teacher candidates, some villagers remembered that this young widow had completed her education through the ninth year—an unusual accomplishment. It took lots of persuasion and time, but eventually her in-laws allowed her to attend the training and become a teacher. Now she is an admired and valued member of her community.

I could go on and on, naming groups and telling stories. Each strategy is small and local, but each empowered woman can bring along several children who may achieve even greater economic and social power through education. Each self-help group can expand and then break apart into two as their businesses and numbers grow, bringing greater economic and social power to the entire community. Each drop makes a difference.

Painted bottle caps used as manipulatives!

Using painted sticks and chalk drawings on a concrete floor as learning materials.

SUCHI School Child