I had my nails painted for only the second time in my life
while I was in India.
The first time was for our wedding- clear varnish, short
nails. This time, in a concrete
school room by the night-time glow of a TV surrounded by children of all ages,
I was offered a choice of violent pea green or pearl pink. Hmmm….
“Nice hands, Miss!” the girls enthused as they expertly
applied two pink coats and then a follow-up layer of glitter.
Beautiful liars.
My nails are comprehensively nibbled, three fingers broken playing
sport. I showed them a couple of
scars- a dog food can, a pen knife and a wine glass. They could hardly get enough of the stories.
We sat together for an hour and watched “Indian Idol- India
vs Pakistan.” Now there’s a
competition… We segued into the girls’ favourite soap opera in Hindi and they
pointed out the hot ‘hero boy’.
I’d already spotted him, actually.
They giggled a lot. I
could’ve been anywhere.
The following
morning, Jem and Brydie were gobsmacked by my transformation.
“But you NEVER let us paint your nails!”
Sheepish, I put my hands back into my pockets and suggested
they have theirs done that afternoon.
These are the moments that sit in my memory alongside
kilometre after kilometre of absolutely bewildering human need. Forehead pressed to the window of our
bus, a world of deprivation slides by:
children and skeletal dogs, men rocking on their haunches by the side of
the road, pitiful dwellings held together with string and bags and mud and
branches. Everywhere, the discarded bits and pieces of peoples lives left
behind after every last item has been picked over for something that can be
re-used or sold for scrap. In many
places the streets bleed garbage and we breathe thick smog.
The sheer scope and scale of need in this country is mind
numbing. The reality here is that
millions of men, women and children will be born into poverty and die the same
way. They will expect nothing
more. And they will get it.
When I think about our paltry efforts to assist- a school
here, a medical clinic there, emergency relief somewhere else- the enormity of
the need beside the tininess of our giving seems laughable. The magnitude of this need
appears to dwarf every giving program, every Government intervention and every
NGO on the planet. I am sick with
the despair of it.
And yet to come away dwarfed and defeated by the need is to
come away with the memory of my unexpectedly transformed nails relegated
to memory’s garbage along with so
much else in India. Because the children
in Durgapur who so carefully painted those nails will have a different future from their parents. Once considered ‘Untouchable’,
unable to access even the most basic of schooling or employment, these children
are attending school alongside their higher caste neighbours. The girls are likely to marry later in
life and will be healthier and less likely to die early from pregnancy-related complications- the leading
cause of death among girls aged 15-24 in the developing world. Some will go on to university. Many will find basic jobs and work
their way into homes with electricity, water, an indoor toilet. Some will go far further.
On the huge tide of human need, these little life rafts are
well worth celebrating.
Every piece of research we have on giving indicates that
people will give to things they believe they can change. “Overcoming poverty in India”,
whole-scale, is not one of those things.
But connecting with one life- one community- and providing education or
health care that can make the difference between grinding poverty and actually
getting by- well, that’s a different story.
It’s one of the main reasons people sponsor children. Child
Sponsorship provides people with a tangible sense that they have broken the
overwhelming problem of poverty down to a manageable size. On the one hand it’s an illusion- on
the other, how else can we respond other than to concentrate on the
personal? Every ocean is made up
of a million drops. Every person
matters.
But there’s a major problem with traditional Child
Sponsorship programs. When only individual children are singled out to receive
funding, others in the community are left behind. We met children in the Hostel in Durgapur- not part of the
UnitingWorld programs we were visiting- who are the recipients of Child Sponsorship from Churches
in the US; they receive extra tuition, uniforms and all the benefits of on-site
living. Their friends and relatives
remain stuck in slum communities just down the road. There’s no widespread benefit from the Sponsorship and as a
result, life only changes for the randomly privileged few.
I didn’t ask directly how the children felt about this. But when we arrived they had just
returned from a brief holiday with their families and it was clear that leaving
their homes- and for some, leaving close friends- to return to the Hostel was a
bittersweet experience.
Not all Sponsorship programs work this way. Child Centered Community Development,
funded by Child Sponsorship, is a different kettle of fish altogether. This model retains the value of
personalised relationships between the donor and the children because Child
Ambassadors are chosen from each community and matched with donors, who keep
photographs and profiles of the child and community to which they belong. But all Sponsorship money is used to
further child centered development in the entire community, for all
children. The child ambassadors
maintain relationships with donors, writing letters to update them on progress
being made for children in the whole community. It’s a much fairer way to do Child Sponsorship and it’s
probably the best of both worlds because it keeps the personal connection while
maintaining good development principles in the communities themselves.
My nail glam was all but gone within 48 hours- scraped and
scratched off by the rigours of travel.
But even now, almost two weeks later, whenever I bite my nails I can
taste the bitter chemical tang of the polish. And that’s not all.
Whenever my mind begins to flash through the vast landscape of need we
wandered in our short stay in India, as it’s prone to do whenever my heart
sinks and my mind darkens, I gently pull myself back to those moments: the concentration of my beauty therapists, Jem and Brydie dancing with the
children, Doug playing cricket, Arjun patiently teaching me his name and
throwing his arm around Raoul for yet another photo, Lata quietly beckoning me
to follow her through the crowded lane to the very end of the slum where she
showed me, proudly, her one room home.
Individual moments.
Individual people.
Life changes because of moments like these. I can’t change the world. But I’m sure as hell not going to turn
away from it because the need is so great that I simply can’t face it. Driving through Agra I listened
to my favourite Jimmy Little album “Resonate” and once again these words lodge
in my chest:
“We cannot do great
things, only small things with great love.”
Here’s some small things to consider:
1. If
you’re part of a family of 4 earning a total family income of $80,000 after
tax, you’re in the top 4.8% of income earners in the world, earning 18 times
more than the average person. If
you gave away 10% of that income, you’d still be earning 16 times more than the
average person. Is there any
chance you can give regularly, or increase your giving, to a program that will
change the living conditions of someone else? Check out http://www.givingwhatwecan.org/why-give/how-rich-you-are
for more stats on giving.
2. To
find out about the program we just visited and to consider giving to it, check
it out here. http://www.unitingworld.org.au/programs/relief-and-development/right-to-learn/
3. If
you sponsor a child, PLEASE make sure it’s through an Agency that does Child
Centered Community Development and benefits whole communities not just
individual children. I can
recommend this https://www.baptistworldaid.org.au/what-we-do/child-sponsorship/
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