Making a Change - Helping When You Can

The viscous circle of poverty keeps churning on like the gears in a well-oiled clock, and the only way to put a spoke in it is to start making a change.  At The Ashoka Tree, our idea of ‘making a change’ means helping where we can and connecting people who need help with those who want to help.  Our visit to the Isolation Ward at the Ernakulam General Hospital reinforced that.  Not only does there remain a huge gap in the kind of medical facilities available through different sections of society, general awareness of different diseases and their prevention seems more a part of advertisements on state television than an actual reality.

The Ashoka Tree, thus, organized a small collection of bed linen, night clothes and toiletries, with a little help from our little helpers at the Kids Club and a lot of help from our friends, for the Isolation/Destitute Ward at the General Hospital.

While conditions couldn’t seem to get worse at this ward, with the general aura of despair and hopelessness mixed with the smell of disinfectant, the small ray of hope that spreads into sunshine remains when we see people help these homeless patients (helping them change, eat and go through their basic daily functions).  It is because of these people that we get reminded that there remains a part of humanity where we still feel – where we care and love enough to spread a little happiness in the lives of people we don’t know.  Elsewhere in this hospital, there remain numerous NGOs also working towards the welfare of people who cannot afford private healthcare, from providing drinking water to palliative care.

However, though most of the patients wouldn’t have been able to use the toiletries we donated, what helped is that there are people who can help them use these; that there are people who will help them wear the new ‘mundus’ and use clean towels as soon as they have been given to them, that there still remain helpers to change bedsheets ever so often as they change bedpans.

Human beings as a species have mastered the art of making things easier for themselves.  From the super smartphone to now even the tiniest texting device that is no more than a little strap – things seem to get easier and easier.  And yet somehow, in the midst of this miraculous pace at which the world moves, time seems to pause for a whole section of society - where everyday still seems a misery, where medical help seems more of a dream than a reality and even a daily meal questionable. 

What matters more than ever today, in an ever-changing fast-paced technologically forward world, is spreading the word - reminding people that though your phone can talk to you and tell you who’s calling, there remains a larger section of humanity whose voices aren’t heard.  People who need help to sit up and eat, people who feel like they have no reason to keep living, people who are abandoned and alone. 

Let’s teach our children to reach out to those less fortunate – to care for those who are alone, to feed those with no food and clothe those with no clothes. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Going Where You Think You Have No Time to Go

Image
Life, inevitably, sends us places we don’t really want to go.   For some of us, it’s that visit to the dentist for that unwanted, but oh so warranted, root canal.   For others, it’s probably the family wedding you don’t want to attend, the off-site work at an unknown place, the transfer to a small town.   For most people, however, it’s that hospital admission – having to be admitted in hospital for an ailment you never saw coming- the expenses involved, the seemingly pointless days spent in hospital, the lack of income during those unproductive days in hospital. While it’s easy to fuss about having to be admitted, a visit to the Government-run General Hospital in your city is bound to change your mind and keep you grateful for the kind of service you can otherwise afford when you get ill. Our visit to the General Hospital led to some painful sights and heartbreaking moments.   With merely 24 beds, there were over 50 patients waiting in the ‘Isolation Ward’....
Read more

Angels on Earth #ChennaiRains

Image
Chennai’s floods have taught us a lot.   While it’s reminded us, in developing countries especially, that there’s a reason cities are planned a certain way and that nature or climate change is not something you can ever take lightly, its also taught us a whole load of other lessons. Agreed, our country’s governing body is certainly not one of the best, our corporations are not the worlds’ finest and truck-loads of relief material have had trouble entering the city.   However, what has turned up trumps is, beyond all this, the feeling of solidarity that all of us Indians have had towards one another.   The belief that there still exist angels among us here on earth.   That a community working together saves more lives than a million individuals on their own.   We’ve had Sikhs servehot meals from Gurdwaras  and  Muslim organizations quietly sending in volunteers to clean temples as well.   The citizens of Chennai have stood up for each oth...
Read more

Furniture Where We Need it Most

Image
There are times when a table means so much more than just a place where you pile books and papers up.  When a chair is so much more than just another seat. Thank you Sridhar & Shanthi Sreenivasan, for giving us furniture that has so much emotional value, for giving us things that mean so much to you personally - for a greater cause. The children and teachers at these three anganwadis are so much happier today for this.  Thank You!
Read more