By Gunjan Agnihotri
Gunjan wrote to ‘Vedanta Khushi’ about her experience in an NGO where she became witness to a lot of rats roaming around newly borne children. We present her story that spreads the message of Vedanta’s Khushi initiative towards ‘Care for the Under-privileged Children’.
I am an active reader of blog ‘Khushi’ and for long have been thinking of sharing this incident.
I always believed, ‘don’t think what people contributed to the society, important is what role you played to make it better’. My interest got me attached to a well known NGO working towards the welfare of the community in Gujarat.
This NGO had the agenda to visit other small NGOs who were working in the similar areas and as part of their visit also celebrate the birthdays of females, falling in the visit month. This time, I was also part of the visiting team.
We went to an NGO located in the heart of the city which was home for the destitute women. The caretaker informed me that this NGO also took care of the abundant infants left mercilessly at their doors. This NGO had kept all these abundant infants in a room which also had few cradles and helpers, who took care of these tiny tots. By nature I am very attached to the kids. I couldn’t control myself and decided to visit that room to play with them for some time. There were around 2-3 helpers for about 10 infants in that room. Helpers were sitting on the mats with these children and feeding them milk through spoon.
But suddenly my all happiness had gone. I was shocked to see a lot of rats running around in that room. It was a horror. What care has been taken to make these kids safe and their food hygienic? Rats and kids in the same room, the thinking made me worried.
Though I am very scared of rats but seeing these infants I just could not resist going inside and mingle with them. Suddenly, a lady came running and informed these helpers that someone has come to donate shoes. In a split of a second, all the helpers disappeared, leaving these infants to the mercy of rats. Though the rats did not harm the kids, but who knew.
This careless and negligence was simply intolerable. I first took the kids one by one and kept them back in their cradles. I couldn’t resist crying. I got so upset seeing them in such condition. I decided not to leave the room before those helpers come back. My temper was high. I scolded them from the top of my voice. One of them even started crying and eventually all apologized.
This incident still brings fear in my mind. From that very day, I am pursuing a dream to open a home for such infants and take care of their health, education and nutrition, in what ever capacity I can.
I believe, It is not the end but a new beginning…
“KHUSHI – Care for the Underprivileged Children” is a mission started on fulfilling the objective and let know the world that we docare for these children – their Nutrition – Education – Health and overall development. “KHUSHI” – a Vedanta Group initiative – is aimed to bring in together like minded people to spread this awareness amongst colleagues, friends, relatives and people around, through word of mouth or through e-medium and the way one feels would be useful. Send heart-felt stories at khushi.creatinghappiness@gmail.com
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