India Diary
Concerns Universe Foundation in a well grounded community based charity working in the slums of Bangalore since 2001. It provides :

• Education to women through its college
• Childcare programmes for those under 5 years of age which provide
   o preschool education
   o nutrition programmes
   o health initiatives to support healthy physical and psychological
      child development
• After-school and summer camp programmes to support
   o children whose parents are illiterate
   o those who have struggled with schooling to continue with
       their education
• Community development programmes including
    o Negotiating with local schools to gain access for
       transient children such as the children of construction
       workers so they can attend school

 
 
 
 
 

   o Helping poor families save
   o Those aimed at women helping them to make informed
       choices in marriage and family relationships such as
       the impact of marriage between extended family
       members and the issues of dowries
• Health programmes including
   o Running a local TB clinic to help poor families get support and treatment in their communities

The success of CUF has been in its ability to create trust and rapport with families in the targeted communities, and understanding their needs and then helping to meet these needs.

This last year CUF

• Visited 500 families in the two slum areas of Bangalore in which they are active
• Supported 123 children who had dropped out of school including construction worker and rag picker children
Got 56 children into their summer camps and re-motivated 27 of these children to support their return to school
• Trained 11 women who graduated with an accredited and recognised diploma
• Created 6 jobs for graduates of the college within CUF itself
• Supported 3 women to secure employment with other organisations

Next year CUF’s targets include
• Supporting the establishment of 5 satellite/community based pre-schools in the homes of the women who have graduated from the college
• Secure the Foundation’s activities and rationalise the impact of running 3 insecure sites by seeking land and a building at a fixed cost

The Foundation’s fundraising activity for this coming year includes targets to
• to secure the costs of the pre-school staff for 1 year - £1500
• to secure the gap funding for running the project for the year (beyond the grants available to it locally) - £7500
• to acquire land and a building to provide a secure and sustainable a base for
• Local, national and international visitors who come to learn, work or participate in our programmes
• The college – symbolising a sustainable and strong learning establishment which women and future employers can look to with pride and which grows the confidence of all who attend – helping to prepare them for the experience of entering other premises of work or learning
• An exemplary pre-school environment which can then be used to train others in and support satellite pre-schools which may be setup in the communities we serve now and will serve as need and opportunity to meet the need grows

My trip to India was made possible by the excellent planning (and their accompanying me and some friends) of my long standing friends Catriona and John Roussel

Catriona was in fact born in India although raised in the UK- she and John had gone back to India in recent years to work with a number of projects in the Bangalore area.
This project ‘Concerns Universe Foundation’ captured the attention of the connectives in late 2006- its is a project aimed at getting children good childcare, addressing key issues of nutrition and community health for them and their families, increasing and educational opportunities for the children and women of the community and for children of construction workers who often were denied access because of their transience.

CUF’s successes were well documented; the leadership of the project extraordinary and well distributed amongst a talent team under the direction of Chitra Lancelot; their risks rising due to the pressure on land values and therefore the sustainability of places in which to do the work.

The connections seemed obvious to us – growth in the UK and elsewhere, leads to growth in places where we export work to. Not everyone however benefits however and the most easy to seize land for development is occupied by those most vulnerable.

The connectives have many contacts in related businesses and fields throughout the world that made us believe we could between us do something to help local people address the risks and strengthen their future work

These blogs were written by me daily and posted back for many to follow (sadly Peter had to stay home and run the rest of the business) . The typos and grammar remain – as typed as I did them daily on my blackberry! Some tidying and distribution of course is with thanks to my good friends Stephanie and Peter – I hope you’ll forgive the errors of fact as well as they’re mine too!

Like many good tv or radio series – the characters seem many and unknown to start but if you persevere – you will find you get to know the various characters – fellow travellers and hosts

My thanks to my travel companions – Sandra Saleh (aka Jinksy - look out for her book!), Sandra Sinclair – SAS Daniels – if ever you need a great lawyer, Sue Owens – who stay behind to work with CUF for 4 months (we await further tales of the city from you on your return) our Australian companions Catherine (who had done VSO with Catriona in 1968) her sister Mary (who did well to connect us all to the down under crew before we even met) and her son Paul (intrepid world traveller) and last but not least my family Josh (who stayed at home but missed me terribly), Kanika (who went to India before me and will continue to stay there in an orphanage til March) and Fay- who could only be spared from the great work she does in the UK for the last week of our travels when we took some holiday.

And of course my big thanks to Catriona and John and to our hosts – Mercy flora and family, Chitra and family and all at CUF, Chandra, John Samuel, and Jacob (who now lives in the UK) and to you who all went in some way with me and have supported with kind words and encouragement.

If you have liked the blogs and want to make a donation to the work at CUF – that would be great you cna donate by depositing moneys into:

St Peters Church Fund
charity no 1111706
CO-OP Bank 08 92 99
acc no 65287897

Or send a cheque to me for forwarding made payable to Help India – if you are a UK tax payer let me know if we can claim the tax back on your behalf by sending me your home address

Day One . . . Day Two . . . Day Three . . . Day Four . . . Day Five

Day Six . . . Day Seven . . . Day Eight . . . Day Nine . . . Day Ten

Day Eleven
. . . Day Twelve . . . Day Thirtee . . . Day Fourteen

Day Fifteen
. . . Day Sixteen . . . The Final Chapter


Click the icon on the left to download a PDF leaflet about the CUF charity.