By Ritesh Prakash*
Charity and donations are like cosmetic surgery without the diagnosis of the actual problem. Often they even interfere with the autonomy of the recipients and make them dependent. The same fundamentals apply in the case of poor and needy children who, many charitable organizations, actually teach to live on subsistence-without realizing that this does more harm than good to these children.
“We had been doing a lot of charity but without taking it to any logical conclusion” concurs Harmeet Shukar, a volunteer from Ammucare – a charitable organisation that has eight branches across India –two in Bangalore, Two in remote areas of Maharashtra (Mirchwadi & Prakash Nagar), one each in Mohanpur (Jharkhand), Hosur & Chennai in Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Delhi.
Various studies have shown that one of the major disadvantages of charity is missing the target. A BBC study finds that charity helps the recipient with their problem but it doesn’t do much to deal with the cause of that problem. In nutshell, it shows that charity is failing to change society as it may not provide the best solution to the problem. The studies say that charity is always accountable to the givers and not the receivers.
Considering these aspects of the shortcomings of charity and its own experience a Palakkad-based charity organization Ammucare has now come out with a novel venture to ensure that their act of charity yields tangible results. Ammucare today operates in over 19 states in India and is powered by a growing team of volunteers that are united by a common purpose of selfless service.
After years of remaining involved in providing freebies to needy children – Ammucare provides resources and services such as food, shelter, clothing, medical care, education, and other means of support that empower and uplift the helpless and needy, beyond any man-made barriers of religion, caste, race, class or gender – the organization realized that most children after passing school actually landed up nowhere for want of a proper break in the desired setup.
Getting admitted to reputable colleges still remained a challenge and most of the children just turned out to be school dropouts with a bleak future ahead. It was here that taking charity and all good work to the next level was a challenge.
“We explored possibilities of new available avenues for these children to ensure they sustain themselves financially in life,” says Harmeet. Ammucare had endeavoured to help over 500 needy children in the last 5 years. Its founder Mohanji had dedicated himself to the cause of poor children in honour of his late daughter, Ammu, who had got crushed under a truck at the tender age of 4 years.
However, the core challenge of rehabilitating the children persisted. Says Mohanji ” We realised that to feed a man a fish, one could feed him for a day, but by teaching a man how to fish, he can feed himself and his family for a lifetime.”
Harmeet says that following this realization now the organization is charting a new path for itself by exploring the avenue of skill development for these needy children.
In the last six months, the organisation set up skill development centres in Hosur and Bengaluru where already over 100 children are the beneficiaries of short term courses in embroidery and tailoring.
“The course has helped these children immensely in getting financial stability,” Harmeet said.
Going by the success of such an experiment, now Ammucare is launching a mega skill development centre in the national capital on April 3, 2022.
“The selection of New Delhi as a venue was based on the initiative of the volunteers,” Harmeet said. She informed that already 80 students have got enrolled on the centre that will impart nine skills to them free of cost. These skills are Cutting and Tailoring, Cooking, Coding (in collaboration with Devyatech, Singapore), English Speaking (in collaboration with englishhelper.com), Electrical and Plumbing, Beautician Course, Vedic Maths, Dance, Music and Yoga, and lastly, Arts and Craft.
The initiative of Ammucare Charitable Trust in Delhi, Mohanji ka Aangan, has been operational for the past five years and has grown along with the little children who first joined the Aangan. But indeed this summer heralds a new beginning at Mohanji Ka Aangan, through the launch of Mohanji Skill Development Centre. As Mohanji says, “The centre aims to truly empower the children by fostering their skills to sustain their livelihood with dignity and prepare them for their bright future.”
Indeed the endeavour to start skill development centres is a step in the direction to help enable children to develop real-world skills to help sustain themselves and their families.
*Ritesh Prakash is an IT professional who is also a volunteer of Ammucare in New Delhi
