This last week during the busy Christmas celebration, we sponsored two young Indian girls, age 16 and age 18. Puja Kumari is in class 11 and wants to study business. She lives in a very small one room “home” that is provided in between two building. Her family has an income of 12,000 rupees per month for seven people. She has 1 brother and 3 sisters. We provided her full tuition of 16,000 rupees (about 1300 Rupees per month) for her schooling to finish class 12. If she gets accepted to university afterward, we hope to continue to support her academically.

Her father and mother sell pakora and samosa for 5 Rupees each to put her through private education and to support the family. Her mother is not able to read and write, while her father has up to 5th grade education.

The other young girl we sponsored is Karobi Mondal, 18 years old and has finished class 12. She will be taking her board exam in March and hopes to go to university. We will provide her with admission fee and tuition. The university she hopes to get in to is Saint Xavier. The admission cost is 35,000 Rupees and tuition is 36,000 Rupees per year. Basically, it is about 500 dollars for admission fee and 500 dollars for tuition. We hope to find the money to put her through university. Karobi’s family total income is 4200 Rupees per month. She is one of five children and will be the first in her family to go to university. Karobi’s family is very poor and she at one time lived on the streets. When she was very young, the Missionaries of Charities Sisters took her family in and cared for her while providing her father and mother with jobs to look after the Gandhi Center. Of course, the pay was not great, but they got a roof over their head and food to eat and Karobi got an education. Now she has an opportunity to go as far as wants. Karobi wants to study English and to become an English teacher. Let’s pray, we can make this dream possible for her.

Yesterday, I carried with me 15 kilograms of rice, 5 kilograms of dal and curry to give to families in the slum. I also brought color pencils and books for the young children. For the older children I brought easy to read science books on astronomy, biology and earth science for them to learn to read in English and also to learn basic science. After I finished passing out the rice, dal, and curry, I spent some time with the older children learning science facts from their new books.

Here are some of the photos and faces of those living in the slum. I hope and pray the children will have opportunities to have better lives.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning was spent at Mother’s House and the rest of the day was spent at Don Bosco. It was nice to celebrate Christmas with the children as they gathered from the various Ashas. Of the 23 children we sponsored, 6 children left Don Bosco due to being homesick or difficult to deal with by the staff. The remaining children are home for the holidays for those who are Christians. The children who are Muslims and Hindus remain at the homes in Don Bosco. All the children will begin their formal education at the start of the New Year; some in Bengali Medium while others will be in Hindi and English Medium. The six children who left we found them back at home in the slum near the Ganhdi Center. If possible, we will try to place them into a day school at Saint George, a nearby private school.

The return to Kolkata has been a busy first three days. On arrival at Don Bosco, I learned seven of the children were homesick and were sent home. The director of Don Bosco Ashalayam said the children may return if I am able to bring them back.

Today, I went into the slum searching for them. I found two of the seven children. Tomorrow, I will see what else I can do to find the children.