Frishta Newsletters

• Issue 18 Autumn/Winter 2009
• Issue 17 Summer 2009
• Issue 16 Spring 2009
• Issue 15 Winter 2008
• Issue 14 Autumn 2008
• Issue 13 Summer 2008
• Issue 12 Spring 2008
• Issue 11 Winter 2007/8
• Issue 10 Summer 2007
• Issue 9 March 2007
• Issue 8 December 2006
• Issue 7 August 2006
• Issue 6 May 2006
• Issue 5 January 2006
• Issue 4 November 2005
• Issue 3 August 2005
• Issue 2 June 2005
• Issue 1 January 2005

If you would like to receive a copy of Frishta News each quarter, please send an email to info@frishta.org.uk

Frishta News - Issue 18 - Autumn/Winter 2009

Welcome to our Autumn/Winter edition of Frishta News. The highlight of this Newsletter is the long awaited fee exemption for our construction project. Read on for more...

Nigel Studley writes:

Frishta Project gets Development Fee Exemption

The news we had been waiting 14 months for finally arrived on Friday, 18th September. I was called to the Punjab Government offices of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and given an advance copy of the Notification that published the new policy allowing social work charities to apply for exemption of planning and development fees. All our hard work drafting policies and lobbying Government officials, had finally paid off!

The following week we submitted our application for exemption from paying fees of Rupees 5.1m (£64,000 / $106,000) to the Greater Mohali Development Authority and also our detailed construction drawings for 'Building Scrutiny' to the Chief Town Planner, Punjab. Our exemption application was approved on 15th October and on 27th October we received the confirmation that Frishta India Charitable Trust had been granted free of charge the Change of Land Use, External Development and Licence for the Children's Village Project.

Christmas Already!

Well not quite, but we are already receiving orders for Frishta Christmas Cards. Take a look at the designs by clicking the link http://www.frishta.org.uk/cards/2009/index.html and drop us an email at info@frishta.org.uk with your order (payment can be arranged via debit or credit card) or by cheque/post.

Whilst surfing and shopping for presents online, why not do it through everyclick.com. Frishta supporters have already raised nearly £500 by using everyclick.com - why not join them and make a difference just with a click of your mouse?

And if you are stuck for what to buy as a present this Christmas, why not buy someone a Frishta brick?! For just £5 you can buy a brick and have the chosen name of the recipient listed in a frame placed in a prominent position in the hallway of the first children's home. There is no limit to the number of bricks you can buy.

You can pay by credit/debit card at our special web page and please leave a message with the name(s) you would like to be displayed. Link: https://www.bmycharity.com/sponsorabrick

"The joy of brightening other lives, bearing each others' burdens, easing others' loads, and supplanting empty hearts and lives with generous gifts becomes for us the magic of Christmas."
W.C. Jones

Appreciating the QUALITIES of Children

• We appreciate children's sense of wonder
  A little child was asked to name the Seven Wonders of the World. She skipped over the ancient seven and said, "To touch, to taste, to see, to hear, to run, to laugh and to love."
• We appreciate children's willingness to learn
  Years ago the author Burton Hillis pointed out that little children have not yet built up layers of insulation, called "familiarity" to deaden the electric surge of delight they feel when they discover something new.
• We appreciate children's love of repetition
  Have you heard little ones squeal, "Do it again. Do it again!"? Nearly 100 years ago, G. K. Chesterton noted that God has this eternal appetite of infancy. "Our Father is younger than we are," he wrote.

Grant Update

The Frishta team continue to apply for grants from Trusts and Foundations with moderate success.

So it is always great when a big cheque arrives. We are glad to report we received £15,000 from the Charles Hayward Foundation and £2,000 from the Holbeck Charitable Trust.

As we still need to raise another £125,000 or 25% of the Village Phase 1 construction costs, this was very welcome. In 2010 we will starting some new campaigns to close this gap.

--oOo--

Opposite: Photo of a girl outside a Temple in Chandigarh. Courtesy of Andy Farag & Matthew Cavin, Aug 09.

Project Progress

Frishta's first volunteer

In August it was great to be joined by Jeff Brett, a builder from the UK. Jeff is our first volunteer and he has given us useful advice on quality control and on how to progress the construction faster. As well as helping out on site he has enjoyed travelling to Nepal, Darjeeling, Kolkata and Manali in the Indian Himalayas.

Construction

Construction of the 2,000 feet Boundary Wall has continued but at a slower pace than we would have liked. We have learnt many lessons from this initial contract and have decided to switch to a new contractor for the main building work. Tendering is progressing at the moment and we will be appointing a new contractor soon.

Pictures below, clockwise:

1. Roof goes on the underground water tank
2. Jeff showing that builders don't only drink tea all day
3. I get in on the act, painting steel angles on top of the wall.

• Approval has been given by Commissioner of Income Tax, Chandigarh under Section 80(G) of the Income Tax Act that donations to Frishta in India from Indian donors are exempted from Income Tax (similar to Gift Aid in the UK).

• In September last year we applied for 'Verification' of the Frishta India Charitable Trust. It has taken almost a year before we received written confirmation that the Frishta Trust has been verified as a bona fide NGO carrying out excellent social work from the Mohali Deputy Commissioner and Punjab Director of Social Welfare. This was an important step in our receiving the fee exemption mentioned above. Excerpt from the letter states:

'This organisation has started the construction work of a building for Frishta Children's Village. In this Children's Village six double storey children's homes will be built. In each home arrangements will be made for taking care of twelve children. In this way, this organisation will take care of 144 children in the Children's Village. This organisation will provide for all the expenditure of the poor and orphan children's daily living expenses, food and education costs.

This organisation is already sponsoring needy and semi-orphan children. These children go to their respective schools for their education.

Therefore this organisation is doing excellent social work. This Verification Report is being sent to further the cause of this organisation along with the recommendation of the Director Social Welfare, Women & Child Development Department, Punjab, Chandigarh.'

The First Frishta School?

When Aneeta Devi from the UK contacted me about applying for a grant in the Vodafone Foundation Competition for Frishta, there was already an idea germinating in my mind. There are about 9 million construction workers in India and they are one of the most vulnerable segments of unorganised labour. They migrate from project to project, living with their families on or close by the construction site. The children of these families receive no education and spend their days playing amongst the sand, gravel and bricks of the building sites. The children grow up illiterate and able only to get low paid jobs similar to those of their parents.

The Frishta building site is no different and we have over a dozen children on site. A construction site may not fit the normal idea of a classroom, but Aneeta wrote a Project Report describing the need and the informal teaching she intended to provide. Unfortunately it didn't win the Prize of a grant but we decided to go ahead with some informal teaching in an open air 'classroom' anyway. Jackie (see below) from the USA took the first class with the help of a Hindi translator and the children and she had a great time. Besides stories and colouring there were drinks and snacks and we also distributed some clothes to the children.

A new Frishta Face

Some of you have already been in contact with Simone, but I thought we should introduce her to everyone properly. Simone Griffin is our new volunteer Frishta UK Office Manager and does a lot of essential fundraising Admin work. Simone is a real asset and has a wicked sense of humour!
You can contact her at simone@frishta.org.uk

The Dangers of Indian Child Marriage

Child marriage is a crippling medical and social burden to women in India and poses a demographic threat to the entire world, health experts recently warned in The Lancet. Specialists in public health from India and the US looked at data for 22,807 women aged 20-24, selected from a geographical and social cross-section of Indian society, who took part in a survey in 2005 and 2006.

A total of 45% of women had been wed by the time they were 18, set as the legal age for marriage since 1978. Of these, 23% had been married before the age of 16 and 3% before the age of 13. Women who had been child brides were more than twice as likely to have multiple unwanted pregnancies, nearly 50 percent likelier to have an abortion and more than six times likelier to seek sterilisation compared with counterparts who had married after the age of 18. Child brides were also at greater risk of a fistula - a tear in the genital tract - as well as pregnancy complications and death and sickness as a result of childbirth.

The report counters the claim that the practice would shrivel as a result of India's rising prosperity and national policies aimed at preventing early marriage and encouraging access to contraception, education and economic opportunities for women.

Fertility expert Vinita Salvi of the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Mumbai said legislation against child marriage in India "exists largely on paper."

"A man's feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world."
George Santayana

The Peak of Fundraising

Friends of Frishta have been out raising money by conquering peaks in Hong Kong and the UK:

• Yorkshire 3 Peaks Challenge

On July 11 Lynn Irving from Manchester took part in the 3 Peaks Challenge in Yorkshire - 12 hours of ups, downs and boggy land! Lynn finished the total walking distance of 39.2km/24.5 miles covering the three Peaks of Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside, and Ingleborough and raised a magnificent £195 for Frishta.

• HSBC Hong Kong 7Km Peak Run, Sunday 27th September, run by Harjit Singh Gill, Ed Burn and Phil Bowers. Harjit tells how it went:

'The Sun was out and a little splash of rain awaited us as we all reached the Peak. The race began and Phil & I kept pace for about 200 yards, we exchanged "good lucks" and that was it. Phil shot after Ed and I kept in mind what I learnt from the Standard Chartered 10k - keep your pace and let rip at the end. All went out of the window as I started pacing myself with the other runners and soon enough, lost sight of my master plan - Tut! Tut! The run was harder than expected and so much for a "flat-up-down" circuit - the "up" was more like "steep" and the "down" had more twists and turns than a "Curly Wurly"!

Doing the 2nd lap of the circuit was a killer - I am sure my fellow compatriots would agree - stitches, muscle strain and just pure fatigue kicked in for all of us at some stage, but we persevered and Phil finished in an admirable 37 minutes, I came in on 42 minutes and Ed was not too far from Phil's time.

Bottom line: we completed the run for Frishta and we completed the run for ourselves to show we can do this without giving up. Will I do it again? ... let me get back to you on that one. We achieved what we set out to do and raised a sum of £1,563 for Frishta. Not bad we say. Thank you to all who sponsored us and for the support given.'

Frishta Friends drop in

It's always great to get visitors and recently we've been visited by Satinder Rai (sorry Satinder, I didn't snap a photo!) and also Rummy Dosanjh and Ball Tagger - see photo on the Frishta site opposite. Rummy and Bal are the amazing ladies (along with Jat Dhillon) who have organised the very successful fundraising dinners for Frishta in Birmingham - here's hope there's another one soon!

Press Cuttings

India's Working Children

Children and forced labourers are mining gold, sewing clothing and harvesting cocoa around the world, and India is the source for the biggest number of products made by these workers, a U.S. government report said on 17th September. The US Congress told the Department of Labor to compile a list of goods produced by child or forced labour in foreign countries and looked at 122 products in 58 countries.

International labour standards define child labour as work performed by someone under the age of 15, or under 18 where the work is deemed harmful. Forced labour is involuntary or done under threat.

In the report, India was linked to the highest number of products made with child labour or forced labour including soccer balls and clothing. "The purpose for doing this is to shine a spotlight so more activities can take place that target these problems. In our country we think of these as 19th century problems, but these are 21st century problems," said Sandra Polaski, of the Department of Labor.

An international convention ratified by 154 countries [including India] requires them to set a minimum working age and to work toward eradicating child labour. "Elimination of exploitative child labour or forced labour from a sector or a country requires intensive, sustained commitment by governments, employers, workers, and civil society organisations," the report said.    [Source: Reuters]

And finally...

"Finishing is better than starting. Patience is better than pride."
Ecclesiastes 7:8

I started with the Exemption and I will finish with it as well. Have you ever been denied something that you believed was rightfully yours and had to wait a long time? Waiting for something for a long time is not easy, especially when it stops you doing what you need to do. They say that patience is a virtue, but in the heat of waiting it can sometimes seem like foolishness. The wait can seem just a waste of time, but we can learn a lot from the situation.

I may have struggled to understand the delay, but the children we want to help are the ones that have had to be really patient. They are the ones who have been denied a secure place to sleep, the certainty of the next meal and the basic rights we all take for granted. How many children we will help depends in a big way on the funds Frishta has available. Please consider signing up as a Frishta Friend or putting your name down to sponsor a child.

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