Heaven on Earth

 

Snehavardhini - A Stream of Love

Mission 2017 – A visit from the Kathkari Tribals to Holy Cross Parish, Kurla

During this time, last year, on 22^nd October 2017 – Mission Sunday, Holy Cross Parish had guests visiting for two days, traveling all the way from Roha, Raigad. Roha is 130 Km from Mumbai, lies between the Sahyadri range of the Western Ghats and the north Konkan region of Maharashtra. Our guests comprised of six Kathkari tribal ladies along with two social workers and three sisters from the congregation of Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, led by Sr. Bridget. Their visit was aimed at spreading awareness about their ‘mission’ which has been close to their hearts since nearly three decades now – a mission that aims at empowering the tribals to have dignity to living through education.

The Invitation

Inviting them to our Parish was a novel idea of Fr. Norbert and the participation of the SCCs along with parish associations, gave it the direction, which paid forward and gave the Parishioners a unique experience to directly meet and interact with them.

Snehavardhini - A Stream of Love

It was their first time in Mumbai city, their coming and putting up a stall of home-made products for us depicted their success story – it gave a living testimony to the decades of toil and hard work done by the congregation in bringing them out of the jungles and into the main stream of civilized life.

Traveling by road for nearly 5-6 hours (each of them comes from remotely different interiors of Raigad) from their Center, Snehavardhini at Roha, they reached Holy Cross Parish in the evening at about 4.30pm on 21^st October (Saturday). A stream of love between Roha and Mumbai had been initiated by the Sisters’ congregation!

The Participation

On reaching, they were welcomed by a small team of volunteers; the volunteers had done the planning and arrangement of their stay by closely networking with the different associations of the Parish (such as the SCC (Small Christian Communities); Women’s Cell; and Lady Sodality).

The Ladies along with the social workers were put up comfortably in the class rooms of the middle school building. Their needs were well taken care of in a well-coordinated manner, among the various SCCs of the Parish.

The Stall

The tribal ladies had brought along with them, variety of products which they had painstakingly prepared back at their center, under clean and hygienic environment monitored by the Sisters. Their Stall was put up next to the stall of Lady Sodality both working towards generating funds for the Mission. The Stall was all set and ready to sell, within minutes of their arrival! Everything was laid in systematic and a neat array of stacks. The volunteering team members were present to support them in every way and in putting up the list of products and their rates, impressively Up on a chalk board!! The stall generated interest among the Parishioners coming to church and they patronized the stall willingly. Few of the products became out-of-stock on Day 1 itself!

About our Guests

Katkaris are a tribe of catechu (Katha)makers. They make catechu from Khair trees. They speak Kathodi, a language currently listed as endangered. Alcoholism, child marriages are the social evil prevalent in their culture. The kathkari tribe depends a lot on the forest for their livelihood. They collect the woods and sell it (only the dried ones- they never cut a good tree), they cultivate nachni and Vari in the forest land which is given to them for cultivation, they have seasonal fruits, flowers and vegetables that they grow in the forest and in the fields. They are largely daily wage earners- who work for a daily wage of Rs.250/- per day. They work as landless laborers. Due to the uncertainties of the employment, 70% tribals migrate to the bricklins, or construction sites to the nearby states like Gujrat and Karnataka thus hampering permanently the education of their children. They are still the victims of caste system and are directly or indirectly treated as untouchables, giving a leeway to the rich and upper caste to oppress and exploit these tribals.

We found that the ladies were fond of dancing, they created their own music and sang in Kathodi language weaving through the day-to-day events in their songs like a story – we were privileged to shake our legs to their tune and rhythm.

Visit to the Mall

When guests visit your city for the first time would you not like to take them around the city as a refreshing break? On similar lines, the day that they were supposed to leave, right after they winded up their stall, they had a little time left before they had their lunch and left for their Wada (villages as they call), the Women’s Cell members volunteered to take tribal ladies to Phoenix Market City to give them an experience of visiting a city Mall. It was a totally different and a new experience for them, they had a nice time seeing around, going up and down the elevator – an experience they are going to always remember and cherish.

The Experience

It was great interacting with them! Initially observant, they opened to us soon. They are simple people with basic needs. The center plays a very important role in their lives, be it health; be it educating their children; and be it leading an independent life of self-employment, they say they owe it all to the ‘center’ and all its initiatives. “Earlier we did not have guidance, had become lazy, things have changed after the center came, we have now become self-reliant” one of them confessed. They also shared how the Sisters helped them understand the importance of their Jal (Water) and Jungle(Forest) resources – how they being the owners of it could now produce goods to support their livelihood.

I got a chance to interact with the social workers, it turned out to be an interesting conversation. Ms. Ashwini Ashok Pawle, is a social worker, working with the center for last 28 years. She confided that initially when she had started to work at the center, the VHP, would time and again warn her that the Sisters are here to convert their faith – an accusation found to hold no truth; instead she found a clear distinction between the values propagated by VHP and that of the Sisters and decided to stay back and work with them. She shared some interesting initiatives of the Sisters for the people.

-        Gavki Meeting (local self-governance):  The village representatives (includes the men, women, youth and children) address the local issues that are taken to the Gram Panchayat; Panchayat Samiti; and Zilla Parishad. They have ample support of the police; Patils; and Sarpanch

-        Bachat Gaath (Self Help Groups): Through the 26 SHG groups they accompany women in nearly 24 villages and help them organize themselves to help each other and oneself; they also have began the Income generation programs through making and marketing the herbal medicines and food products of Nachni etc . Alcoholism, is a problem faced by both the gender but the ladies meet once a month and a certain amount is saved regularly and based on these savings the community issues or needs are resolved by lending money to them via Bachat Gaath – this saves them from going to money lenders and getting exploited.

-        Education for girls: Girls drop-out was on an increase but due to center’s efforts the scene is now changing, with the first generation of their children now finishing their education and graduating, their lives have certainly taken a turn for better.

-        Child Marriages: With children being married off early, especially girls at very tender age, child mortality rate during child labor was ever increasing, now with awareness program frequently run by the center, four villages have taken a vow (Shapat) to educate their girls and get them married at the age of 18years.

-        Self-employment: Center promoted the idea of Jal and Jangal to the villagers who now have understood the value of resources available to them and have recently started small self-businesses of manufacturing products (the ones sold at their stall).

-        Supplementary classes: They have supplementary classes in 15 villages that accompany the students in their formal education, 20 Balsansads- the dynamic children’s groups through which they encourage the leadership and talents of the students, and help them grow in the mutual growth and responsibilities towards each other and to their own society.

-        Health: the centre trains the village health workers in herbal medicines, enforce cleanliness in the villages and supplementary classes and accompany the patients of TB, Leprosy and malnourishment. Special cares are taken for the expecting mothers (victims of child marriage)  in order to bring down the mortality rate at birth

The sisters accompany them in their life and needs through their empowering and developmental activities throughout the year

.

The Farewell

The missions do not end in a day; they continue to become a journey! Though our guests have gone back, they went back with confidence – confidence that tells them to continue their journey of self-empowerment; of good will and trust; of being welcomed – something they never expected to the extent of which our Parishioners have extended their generosity and hospitality towards them! They take it all with them with an invite for us to visit them soon. A small team of volunteers did visit them on 11^th November 2017, to participate in their Balmelawa thus lending support to the vision and mission of the congregation Sisters.  Snehavardhini, a small stream of love has entered our hearts and plans to grow into a river!

ABC's of Marriage

This is something I have always liked and the most commonly gifted by me to any newly married friends.

Bowled over by a tablet that does yoga!

Ragini my cousin was to meet me at Pheonix Market City, Kurla. She is getting married this December and we planned to have lots of masti and shopping together, and ofcourse there was a lot of catching up to do. Well, Ragini arrived a full 40 minutes late to the appointed hour which by the way is very much like her..uff! She walked in wearing a splendid red kurti over her black jeans, she looked radiant as ever! while seeing her enter I was distracted with something that she was carrying with her.. was it her phone? didn't look like it though, it was only when she was two feet away did I realize that it was a tablet which she was holding clumsily. "Welcome Madam, you are late!" I scolded her "and what is this that you are holding which looks like it doesn't want to stay with you", I joked. She told me that was her tablet which she uses regularly at home but finds it a inconvenience while travelling, mainly because her hand at her wrist hurt if she carried it for a long while. Now, let me say it here, Ragini is a copy writer by profession and does free lancing  and she requires to send in her work regularly on the fly and compiling bizarre deadlines

Sometime in the middle of shopping she asked me if I would like to own a tab to which I looked at her and asked her if she was buying me a new tab or selling me off this box of inconvenience which was leading to her frustrations now. She told me she can have hers, I asked, "and for how much?" "for FREE" came back her reply. I was not sure if she really meant it, she meant it or not but I liked the idea of owning a tab, it was kind of cool to have a bigger screen than your regular phones, watching movie and reading a book on the run. At that very moment we passed by Chroma and something made us both stop in our stride and focus on a play card which read, "Unveiling Lenevo's multi mode YOGA TABLET" Without saying a word to each other we got pulled to the advertisement that displayed awesome images of Lenevo's Yoga Tablets that are available in multiple modes.

We both were taken in by the looks not to forget the attention grabber name - YOGA TABLET.. for the first time we both opened our mouth to wonder aloud..did this tablet do Yoga or did they make their owners do yoga?? Intrigued and excited we both charged in and requested a demo. The demo left us both impressed and increased our longing for it.

We both came out of the store and both had something to say about it...Ragini - the sweet girl that she is..thought of gifting it to her fiance, Dinesh. Whereas me, I was too smitten to think about anybody else but me. I made up my mind to gift it to me the first thing once my salary is credited! :-)

Once we shared our thoughts we went about discussing the salient features of the yoga tab, Ragini giggled when she mentioned, "The name itself will bring in good health along with good times, it has YOGA + TABLET in its name itself". We loved the name, the look, the features and functionality explained and displayed during the demo, and not to forget the awesomely unique cylindrical handle that allows you to use the tablet in several different modes, and who could beat its mobile focused, sound enhancing, Dolby Digital Plus. Could there be anything else that we could ask for? anything that we wished it had and I recollected that we couldn't see the regular android feature of android - the app drawer! Our suggestion to people out there listening..hey please put the icon with the feature back.. we need our apps put back in a drawer or else we feel nervous. We said our goodbyes once we were done with our shopping but not before we liked the page https://www.facebook.com/LenovoIndia on FB :-)

My experience with 'Teach India'

When I signed up for Teach India, I knew it is something I really wanted to happen. And after the initial screening, getting selected was the best thing to happen in a long time. :) 


Teach India, is a collaborative effort of the 'Times of India' and 'British Council' focused on teaching spoken English to underprivileged youth in the urban society who are in the age group of 18-32 and who have had basic introduction to the English language in school as their 2nd or 3rd language. 


As a volunteer, I was committed to 2 hours a day, 3 days a week for 10 weeks (3 months) and 56 hours of training prior to the start of the programme.


Teaching adults in the age group of 18 -32 years was not something I  thought I could do confidently. But I had confidence in the training given by British Council - and I was proved right. At the end of 7 days training that I took at one go, I found myself rearing to go and TEACH :))) with no inhibitions or worries whatsoever. These 7 days did to me what any other public speaking course might have taken months to achieve... as I always thought facing people and 'talking' was not my cup of tea. (LOL!). When I pushed myself conscientiously to come out of my comfort zone and to overcome my fears of public speaking - micro teaching gave me ample opportunity to do it - I felt liberated! 

At the Bandra Center of training, I met people from different backgrounds having vast experiences from what they do in life - but they were all there with me with the same aim - to reach out and make a positive difference in the lives of few others. I made so many friends out there... today we are connected via Facebook and plan to meetup on regular basis. :)

With lots of enthusiasm and equiped  with new methodology of teaching - it is something unlike the methods used in schools where teacher takes up lot of time talking, Teacher Talk Time (TTT), instead we were trained how to encourage Student Talk Time (STT), I started my teaching at an NGO near home at Don Bosco Traning Institute (Kurla).


Ms. Soniya Kshirsagar was assigned my buddy and we both were assigned differed days in a week to teach our class. She has been a supportive and a true buddy by all means. 


My learners turned out to be an eager and infectiously enthusiastic bunch of youngsters all in the age group of 18-26 years, they are 33 in all! :) . Till date they have maintained that eagerness and enthusiasm for learning - touch wood!


They just love coming to class where they learn to speak English by playing games; by taking part in pair or group activities; by performing role plays;  by story telling or sharing an experience; where they are not punished for not doing homework but are instead rewarded with cute stickers if they do it (while they just love being rewarded, I just love seeing their book being decorated :D). From being the shy, reluctant, hesitant, nervous, and low in confidence lot of day 1 to being the confident, happy, ambitious, well groomed individuals as they are today, it has been a journey of 50 -50 partnership between them (learners) and us (Volunteers, me and my buddy). Currently, for the upcoming convocation ceremony, my learners are practicing a skit in English which they will perform on stage for 5-7 minutes. 

With just last few classes remaining I am sure I'll miss them - will miss those eager to learn faces absorbing and hanging on to each and every word I say, who have shared with me their happiness and failures, who aim to secure a job that would make lives of theirs and their loved ones better. 


And what have I got in return? a satisfying experience that is priceless...

-Julie

To know more about Teach India kindly, visit http://www.itimes.com/public_teach-india.php?ctype=mumbai -the registration for the next cycle is currently open.

Magic figure of 10,000 views for my Infant Food Recipe eBook

It was a moment filled with pride and happiness, to read congratulatory email announcing my Slide share receiving 10,000 views! - a milestone achieved only by few Slide Share users" - as quoted in the email. :)))

Click on the link, http://www.slideshare.net/antnjul/infant-food-recipes to have a glimpse of the Slide Share and kindly forward the link to all women who have 'newly' entered motherhood and/or to those who worry a lot about the diet for their infants.

This is a dream come true moment for me as I have always wanted the Infant Food Recipe to reach far and wide so that more and more parents come back to traditional food when it comes to feeding their babies.

Also, it is time now to have an advance version of the ebook with additional recipes and additional information. Any kind of contribution, information, suggestions are most welcome :))))

-Julie

PS: for those who have missed this earlier, here is a glimpse of the same.

View more documents from Julie Anthony

Love is a two way street: Love your hair and it loves you back!

My Proposal snap got noticed by my soon-to-be husband for one prominent reason... my hair! 


I never had 'very' long hair, they refused to grow beyond my waist and stopped growing just above my waistline - the reason being 'Split-ends'.


I have been blessed with thick black hair just like my mom (hers is more curlier than me though) but could hardly maintain it - resulting in roughness and then split-ends.


My earlier hair care regime:

1. Oil my hair, a night before
2. Wash it off with a Shampoo, the next morning.
3. Regular hair-trimming to get rid off those annoying split-ends
4. Thats it! 

The concept of using conditioners were all aliens to me!


Times changed, I saw women getting their hair colored; ironed; and chemically treated for a longer lasting look.  Their hair looked lovelier, shinier, and felt softer - I was impressed. But at the same time I didn't want to lose out on my individuality, I loved the color, black that my hair sported and somehow I was not ready to compromise on the 'waviness' of my hair. 


I remember once my friend commenting, "Straighting would look good on your hair" to which I had replied, "then I would look one-of-them as to me they all look same". My requirement was simple, to tame my unruly hair without compromising on its nature.  I now included 'conditioning' in my regime of hair wash.


After trying out quite a lot of options of shampoos and conditioners available in the market, I almost gave up on my hair - unconsciously I had started blaming my hair with the expressions like - 'Kuch nahi ho sakta' :( Why my hair never responded to these products was beyond me.


Very recently, I was contemplating the idea of hair Spa for my hair as a last resort before I totally gave up on it. My prayers were answered with an invitation from Indi Bloggers for a Dove Spa event. The event turned out to be a blessing. Apart from unlimited fun, treats, pampering, spot prizes that were showered on us, we got a chance to interact with Dove's official hair expert, Ms. Soumya. She cleared all our doubts patiently and I got to know more about hair masks and hair serums. I was now more informed about the 'correct usage' of these products - for a dry hair like mine she had suggested weekly usage of hair masks.


With my hair Spa done and armed with my Dove hamper of Shampoo, conditioner, mask, serum - the 'Dove Nourishing Oil Care Range' packaged in an awesome bag, I left the venue all excited and eager to shower my hair with love and kindness, called Dove. ;)


Its been 7 days since I started using Dove - for a change, my unruly hair seems to be all tamed. :D


It has been truly said, "Love is a two way street: Love your hair and it loves you back!"


My current hair-care regime is as follows (done every alternate day in a week):

1. Oil my hair, a night before/ an hour before  
2. Wash it off with Dove Nourishing Oil Care daily use Shampoo.
3. Apply Dove Dual Stripe daily treatment conditioner after every wash except on the day I use hair mask.
4. Apply Dove Nourishing Oil Care Repair hair mask - once a week only.
5. Apply Dove Nourishing Oil Care Vita Oil serum after hair is towel dried and whenever required in a day (I carry the little bottle in my bag!)
6. Thats it! 

Am loving the love that my hair is showering back at me :))))