Dear Friends,
Continuing from the 13th March mail regarding our attitude.
Lesson 1: My attitude reveals the real me
Lesson 2: My attitude determines the success and failure of every relationship in my life
Lesson 3: Your attitude is always your choice
Here are some examples that really inspire. Like the man who was explaining to a friend about his days in college. He said, "No, I never actually was in the top half of my class, but I can say that I was in the group that made the top half possible..."
Two men were in prison. One looked out through the bars and saw only mud. The other looked out through the same bars and saw the moon & stars. They are both in the same place. What’s the difference? It’s the attitude of choice.
Without a doubt, the human mind is the most awesome creation of God. With it, God has given us the ability to think, to, reason and to choose whether we will focus on positive thoughts or negative thoughts. In every one of our lives there is the positive and the negative. The choice as to which one we will focus on and feed/ nurture is up to us.
Robert is a classic example. His hands are twisted and his feet are useless. He can’t bath himself. He can’t feed himself. He can’t brush his teeth, comb his hair, or put on his underwear. His shirts are held together by strips of velcro. He drags like a worn-out audio cassette.
Robert has cerebral palsy.
The disease keeps him from driving a car, riding a bike, and going for a walk. However, itt didn’t keep him from graduating from high school or attending Abilene Christian University, where he graduated with a degree in Latin.
Having cerebral palsy didn't keep him from teaching at St. Louis Jr. College or from venturing overseas on 5 mission trips.
Robert’s disease didn’t prevent him from becoming a missionary in Portugal. He moved to Lisbon, alone, in 1972. He rented a hotel room and began studying Portuguese. He found a restaurant owner who would feed him after the rush hour and a tutor who would instruct him in the language.
When he speaks, men carry him in his wheelchair onto the platform. With his stiff fingers he forces open the pages of a book from which he teaches from... While people in the audience wipe away their tears.
Robert could have asked for sympathy or pity, but he does just the opposite. He holds his bent hand in the air and boasts -- "I have everything I need for joy."
You can’t choose what will happen to you today or tomorrow (it’s beyond your control) -- but you can choose your own attitude - we each have the power to decide how we will respond to what happens to us.
It's the financial new year. We hardly wrapped up the 2022 calendar year and we are still celebrating all that we were able to do last year with your help. Even though we couldn't finally clear all our deficits, we still want to maintain a positive attitude, looking at what we were able to do last year in rescuing, rehabilitating and reintegrating lives.
So, thank you for being here with us! People like you make this work possible every single day. Will you consider partnering with us even further in this fight? To donate now, check out the link here.
We are thankful for you and can't wait to continue to share new stories of hope and freedom with you!
Yours sincerely for a traffic-free world,
aaboo :-)
Stories are powerful and they move those who hear/read them to take action and change lives. Let's read some stories of what happened in the last couple of weeks.
Rupa Biswas:
I was born in a village near Bongaon, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal. I grew up in a poor family and at a young age (hardly 14-15) I was brought to Mumbai and sold off to a dance bar in Panvel. It's almost 15 years now. I moved after a few years from Panvel to Kalomboli. Again after a few years, I came to Sonapur, Bhandup. Meanwhile, two sons were born to me who are now 20 and 22 and they were in my village. A few years back, I met a man and left the area to be with him in Karjat. I have been working as a domestic servant but the family where I work exploit me and doesn't pay me. So I decided to leave and come back to Sonapur about two weeks back.
Staff from Purnata have been visiting me and encouraging me to move to a better life of dignity. I have been giving excuses but often felt that what they said makes sense but it is not easy to know who to trust. Last week a madam and sir came along with some guests. They too encouraged me to leave. I had a debt of Rs. 6000 and when they offered to pay it up if I left, I immediately grabbed the opportunity. I left the very day and moved into Purnata Bhavan. I enjoy being here and have found a family who cares for me.
Chetna Shah:
Bharath, Chetna's father, has been going to the place where he worked before, where a friend of ours used to work, and was saying he will sell the children as he has no means to look after them. Our friend referred the 10-year-old child named Chetna who seemed to be at risk. Her biological mother passed away when she was three years old and her father got remarried another lady. Due to issues between him and his new wife, he left her and took the three children with him (the girl is the second child of the three). We are not clear where the other two boys are but believe they too are at risk.
To verify this our social worker along with our program manager contacted him and went to meet him. We found out that he stays in a small Chinese restaurant with other men and she is the only girl. Many of the men were drunk and the father slept on the streets.
We took his daughter to a decent restaurant and they provided her with some food. She enjoyed herself and was very talkative. We spent time with her and tried listening to her. Later when her father came she shut up and didn't say anything. She also refused to eat. We counselled him to send the child to our group foster care home where she would go to a good English medium school and have a future. He doesn't have a job and is placing the child at great risk in his environment. When he agreed and went to get her clothes, she immediately gobbled up the food before her. She said she is very afraid of her father and said not to tell him. She also said she would like to go with us and go to school. We noticed that the child is having a great fear of him.
He went with us to drop Chetna at the foster care home where he saw she would be secure. We were to make a legal affidavit with him for his consent but before that, he has been constantly calling and threatening all of us, including the lady who first referred the case, that he will harm himself.
Seeing that he will constantly cause trouble, we have handed over the child to the Child Welfare Committee for further action. They have placed her in St. Catherine's Home for now. We hope we can try and get her to be placed with us in the near future.
Some highlights:
This week Rekha Prakash Ram (our beneficiary who left and went back home) came to Aashray centre and told our staff that wants to rejoin the training again and she wants our help to get her license. Her husband has also come to live here from the village and her boyfriend also comes to meet her. She doesn't want to have any relationship with both, only with her son.
Our Aashray staff have been helping women in the area to link their Aadhar and pan cards.
All our staff handling a project or handling accounts in projects went through a quick refresher training on the handling of accounts to ensure compliance, admin matters, attendance, etc.
The Legal meeting online is still going on with nearly 13 of our staff from Mumbai & WB joining it. This week the focus was on child marriage and all the legal aspects related to it.
At Jeevan Asha, 17 children have been coming regularly and 9 came for football practice.
We are encouraging Sakila Khatun to leave the area and enrol her daughter Anisha in the school. Anisha is very good at her studies.
Also, we are encouraging Ruksana Mir to leave the area and enrol her son Noor Alam Mir in the school.
At Source Area - Child Centre In Akharpur- 10 more students took admission and will be joining in April.
A medical camp was conducted in Sonagachi, Kolkata and our staff helped with bringing the women to the medical camp. Around 40 women came and our staff could spend some time talking to them
In all our centres, we have been helping children with their exam preparation.
Thank you for your continued support. Together, we can make a difference. I hope you’ll take the time to look at our website at www.purnata.org and the regular updates we put on social media via our handle @Purnataorg. As always, feedback is welcome and encouraged.