Kumar is arriving some 5 min late and he is apologizing deeply, "i am sorry sir, traffic sir, i am sorry...come come" and we get into the rickshaw and off we go, it seem like Kumar is trying to pick up some of the lost time and is speeding a bit more today than yesterday - i must say that i have full confidence in him abilities to handle his rickshaw.. after a bit of travelling we are at the office again, we meet and greet with the team members that showed up seemingly only to see us, we sit for 5 min with Virgil to brief her on our experiences from last night and what we feel and are going through emotional, it seems to be wasted words, as she is very clear with what we feel - it is like she reads my mind, she sees into my heart, and explains that why what we are about to do for her organization is so important, improve the skills of a selected few - to have them carry this on to the "grass-root" level, and have even more community changes, create even more community leaders. Thanking Virgil for her time, we are again sitting in Kumars blue rickshaw (normal rickshaws are yellow by the way...) and we are off to the slum again for a whole day ..
So our first stop on the road is the organizations office that is located 20 meter from a railroad crossing, on the 2nd floor, its pretty big and taking the location into consideration, actually rather nice. So we start off with a staff meeting, where Susanne and i get to ask the staff members there pretty much anything, they are really engaged in the conversation and time flies, before we know of it - we are off to our first visit, a visit of a "steel fabric".. okay so when i hear "steel fabric" i think of 100s of people, steel everywhere, and loud noise everywhere, i guess i got a bit of steel, some people and a lot of noise correct!! So we go deeper into the slum, to find a couple of what looks to be a house without a front side, it is open like a carage, here we find three young men working with steel, they are eager to invite us in to show us their craft, which exsist of hammering, cutting, welding, and polishing, we meet and greet - we move across the street to meet some more workers, and we soon become the centre of all attention, all eyes are up on us, pictures are being taken, not of them, but funny enough many of the steel workers pulls out a mobile phone and starts snapping pictures of Susanne and i, this here is strange, we get the feeling that we are like celebraties, and that is not a feeling i am use to... - so the story behind this "steel fabric" was and is, that they were use to hire children to do their work, it was cheaper and the children wouldnt complaint at all, thanks to a lot of work from the local teams and all the support staff members, they have been able to take these children out of the fabric and put them back in schools, have men take over this job, sure the salaries are increased a bit, but here is the interesting thing, once the team started explaining the owner of this business that childe labour is wrong and why, what etc.. the owner accepted it and changed his stand-point, and is now an active support of the organization, interesting what a "little" push in the right direction can achieve..(i know it is not that easy - that is not what my point is, it rather being, by engaging people in a two-conversation a lot of things can change..) After the visit to the steel fabric,we work over to our first house visit - we take off our sandals, enter the living room, that also serves as the bedroom in the evening, here we meet a whole group of women, friends, family and others that just came over to see Susanne and i, all in all they live 6 people in a room that is no bigger than a 3x3 meter room, with a tiny kitchen, a something looking like a toilet / bathroom, we are offer my new found favorit drink CAJ, and off goes the conversation, the women are telling us about their lives, their stories, about their families, their children, their hopes and dreams, all so different, and yet the denominator in their lives seems to be the same, it seems to be - that they have taken owership over their own lives, they are taking responsibility for their own future, getting educated, getting busy with work, providing a better future for their children, oh and where is the husband in this equation, that was my question as well - so i ask them this question, and the whoopeling starts, their husbands are unemployeed, out drinking caj, or in many worse cases out getting drunk.. - what a rolemodel they are... and yet it seems that the second most importanting thing these women grave for, is simply respect from their husbands, i have difficulties accepting that, difficulties with it because these women deserves much more than just respect from their husbands.. they are leaders, community leaders, one woman even ran for office at this current election 3 days ago, yet she only looks for respect from her husband - how ironinc!
After this visit we move over to another one, this time in much worse housing conditions, i am sorry to be this direct, but you cant even call it a house, it is 4 walls, with something looking like a roof .. inside is a women on the ground, with a kaske on her left leg, she had it stitched some 4 weeks ago, and now is not able to work, and she feels guilty for the fact that she cant work right now, we hear her story of how she is taking care of 3 children, her husband is sometimes working, money are short, but she some how manages to "find" some 100 rupees that she ask one of the neighbours to take and go and buy some drinks for Susanne and i, we fast insist that we dont need anything more and that we had caj and water and and and... i couldnt bare having her spend unnesecary money on buying me something to drink. I ask her what her dreams are - and she answers, to have my daugthers to go to university and marry good, i ask her about her dreams for herself, she politely shakes her head, and tells me "i dont have any dreams for myself, only for my children, i am not important, only they are"... - she is almost in tears, i feel tears coming to my eyes, imagine thinking that you, yourself is not "important" .. i politely correct her, "for your children you are important, for this community you are, and for that i thank her" ... i think she accepts my words, but i dont think she will change her opinion about herself...
We get back into the rickshaw, move to our final house visit, here we meed a grandmother, taking care of her grandchild, her daughter - well she is out working, we start to talk to this grandmother, she proudly tells us that one soon works in a good job (a bank or something), and her other son is working in Qutar in construction, then we talk to her about her own life, her story, and she gladly starts to share with us, it is a warm story, about her passion for cooking, that is now a business of hers, she was recently rewarded with a tender to cook for the local hospital, 3 meals a day, so it is a lot of business, you can see that she is very proud of herself, and for great reasons, but her story doesnt stop her, she even has people learning to cook from her, she is sharing her ways of cooking, the preparation of different dishes with other women, and she hires women in to help her with the cooking for the hospital ... we ask her about what the big problem now in the slum is - as child labour, employment and opportunities are slowly becoming better - she tells us her fears, and a big problem in the slum, the problem is a very well known problem, it is called human trafficing... - and here i start to sweat even more, human trafficking happens some 500 meter from where i am sitting, and she tells us what happens.. I wrote out a chapeter on this as well - but after longer time thinking i have decided not to post it on my blog, i guess the reasons are obvious...
So our first stop on the road is the organizations office that is located 20 meter from a railroad crossing, on the 2nd floor, its pretty big and taking the location into consideration, actually rather nice. So we start off with a staff meeting, where Susanne and i get to ask the staff members there pretty much anything, they are really engaged in the conversation and time flies, before we know of it - we are off to our first visit, a visit of a "steel fabric".. okay so when i hear "steel fabric" i think of 100s of people, steel everywhere, and loud noise everywhere, i guess i got a bit of steel, some people and a lot of noise correct!! So we go deeper into the slum, to find a couple of what looks to be a house without a front side, it is open like a carage, here we find three young men working with steel, they are eager to invite us in to show us their craft, which exsist of hammering, cutting, welding, and polishing, we meet and greet - we move across the street to meet some more workers, and we soon become the centre of all attention, all eyes are up on us, pictures are being taken, not of them, but funny enough many of the steel workers pulls out a mobile phone and starts snapping pictures of Susanne and i, this here is strange, we get the feeling that we are like celebraties, and that is not a feeling i am use to... - so the story behind this "steel fabric" was and is, that they were use to hire children to do their work, it was cheaper and the children wouldnt complaint at all, thanks to a lot of work from the local teams and all the support staff members, they have been able to take these children out of the fabric and put them back in schools, have men take over this job, sure the salaries are increased a bit, but here is the interesting thing, once the team started explaining the owner of this business that childe labour is wrong and why, what etc.. the owner accepted it and changed his stand-point, and is now an active support of the organization, interesting what a "little" push in the right direction can achieve..(i know it is not that easy - that is not what my point is, it rather being, by engaging people in a two-conversation a lot of things can change..) After the visit to the steel fabric,we work over to our first house visit - we take off our sandals, enter the living room, that also serves as the bedroom in the evening, here we meet a whole group of women, friends, family and others that just came over to see Susanne and i, all in all they live 6 people in a room that is no bigger than a 3x3 meter room, with a tiny kitchen, a something looking like a toilet / bathroom, we are offer my new found favorit drink CAJ, and off goes the conversation, the women are telling us about their lives, their stories, about their families, their children, their hopes and dreams, all so different, and yet the denominator in their lives seems to be the same, it seems to be - that they have taken owership over their own lives, they are taking responsibility for their own future, getting educated, getting busy with work, providing a better future for their children, oh and where is the husband in this equation, that was my question as well - so i ask them this question, and the whoopeling starts, their husbands are unemployeed, out drinking caj, or in many worse cases out getting drunk.. - what a rolemodel they are... and yet it seems that the second most importanting thing these women grave for, is simply respect from their husbands, i have difficulties accepting that, difficulties with it because these women deserves much more than just respect from their husbands.. they are leaders, community leaders, one woman even ran for office at this current election 3 days ago, yet she only looks for respect from her husband - how ironinc!
After this visit we move over to another one, this time in much worse housing conditions, i am sorry to be this direct, but you cant even call it a house, it is 4 walls, with something looking like a roof .. inside is a women on the ground, with a kaske on her left leg, she had it stitched some 4 weeks ago, and now is not able to work, and she feels guilty for the fact that she cant work right now, we hear her story of how she is taking care of 3 children, her husband is sometimes working, money are short, but she some how manages to "find" some 100 rupees that she ask one of the neighbours to take and go and buy some drinks for Susanne and i, we fast insist that we dont need anything more and that we had caj and water and and and... i couldnt bare having her spend unnesecary money on buying me something to drink. I ask her what her dreams are - and she answers, to have my daugthers to go to university and marry good, i ask her about her dreams for herself, she politely shakes her head, and tells me "i dont have any dreams for myself, only for my children, i am not important, only they are"... - she is almost in tears, i feel tears coming to my eyes, imagine thinking that you, yourself is not "important" .. i politely correct her, "for your children you are important, for this community you are, and for that i thank her" ... i think she accepts my words, but i dont think she will change her opinion about herself...
We get back into the rickshaw, move to our final house visit, here we meed a grandmother, taking care of her grandchild, her daughter - well she is out working, we start to talk to this grandmother, she proudly tells us that one soon works in a good job (a bank or something), and her other son is working in Qutar in construction, then we talk to her about her own life, her story, and she gladly starts to share with us, it is a warm story, about her passion for cooking, that is now a business of hers, she was recently rewarded with a tender to cook for the local hospital, 3 meals a day, so it is a lot of business, you can see that she is very proud of herself, and for great reasons, but her story doesnt stop her, she even has people learning to cook from her, she is sharing her ways of cooking, the preparation of different dishes with other women, and she hires women in to help her with the cooking for the hospital ... we ask her about what the big problem now in the slum is - as child labour, employment and opportunities are slowly becoming better - she tells us her fears, and a big problem in the slum, the problem is a very well known problem, it is called human trafficing... - and here i start to sweat even more, human trafficking happens some 500 meter from where i am sitting, and she tells us what happens.. I wrote out a chapeter on this as well - but after longer time thinking i have decided not to post it on my blog, i guess the reasons are obvious...
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