Trip Itinerary

My final Itinerary has been confirmed and we've changed some things:

Depart Austin Oct 10th 10:30am

Arrive Delhi Oct 11th 8:15pm (14 hour flight from Newark to Delhi)
Spend the night in Delhi

Oct 12th - Domestic flight from Delhi to Ranchi. From Ranchi, I will take a train through rural India 3.5 hours to Rourkela.

Oct 13th through 15th - 30 Miles north of Rourkela in the small town of Birmitrapur is the Rourkela Home for Children which houses 100 children.

Oct 16th - train back to Ranchi and Scooch Village - home to 95 children, many under 6. Scooch is made of up 20 cottages set up family style each with their own kitchens and bathrooms. Many of the children here come from the nearby tribal villages. Scooch Village has a large cricket field so I hope to learn the sport.

At Scooch, we will be getting ready for one of the biggest Hindu festivals, Diwali. This festival is celebrated for five continuous days, with the third day being celebrated as the main Diwali or 'Festival of Lights'. The day is filled with candles (called diyas), fireworks and celebrations. This is going to be such a treat to be a part of!

Oct 17th - Diwali celebrations!

Oct 18th - I leave Sooch in the afternoon to fly back to Delhi

Oct 19th - Spend the day in the Delhi area with a late night flight back to Austin

Oct 20th - Arrive back in Austin for rest and reflection.

The Convention on the Rights of a Child

In 1990, The United Nations ratified The Convention on the Rights of a Child.  The Convention acknowledges that every child has certain basic rights including the right to education, health care, and protection from abuse.  In 2000, two additional protocols were adopted prohibiting the sale of children, child prostitution, and child pornography.  193 countries have ratified the Convention including every member of the United Nations except Somalia and, believe it or not, the United States.   The Obama administration is said to be reviving efforts to advocate that the U.S. sign on the the global children rights treaty.
The rights of the child is one of the primary principles that the Miracle Foundation seeks to achieve for the children in their care.

India accounts for 21% of wordwide deaths of children under five

As indicated in this article from today's Times of India, the under five mortality rate is improving but over 1.8 million children under five still die each year in India.   Another nearly 1.7 million children over five die annually.  Most lose their lives from preventable or treatable illnesses.    There is still a lot to be done.

Details from Last Miracle Foundation trip

Here is a blog with some excerpts from the group that recently returned from India with the Miracle Foundation.  Click here.  6 weeks until I will be there!

Simdega Home for Single Mothers / Global Giving

I met with Barbara at the Miracle Foundation Friday to get some of my paperwork in order and to get some more details of the trip itinerary. We will be adding in a visit to the Simdega Home for Single Mothers. This home is in a tribal area of Jharkhand which is in one of the most impoverished regions of India and has one of the highest maternal/infant mortality rates in the country. Simdega Home provides pre-natal care, hospital births, formula, and immunizations for mothers and children.

The Miracle Foundation is trying to earn a permanent spot on GlobalGiving.com, a highly respected website which connects donors to causes that they care about. As part of the Global Open Challenge, the Miracle Foundation has until September 18th to raise enough money to earn them eligibility to continue to receive donations from the general public, private and corporate foundations through globalgiving.com. Money generated will go towards the Simdega Home for Single Mothers. Donate here

'The Weight of Silence' book review

I finished reading The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India last week. Shelley Seale does a superb job of putting a face and name to the children both inside the safe arms of the Miracle Foundation's outreach in India as well as those still living in harms way, on the streets and slums, often exploited and without simple basic needs. She spends quite a bit of time exploring, examining and explaining the plight of poverty in India and the challenges many families face: how we got there and possible ways out. It's full of startling and eye opening statistics. Heart wrenching at the same time heartwarming. Shelley does a great job of helping understand India as a whole. It’s not just a country of despair, but a resilient country full of possibilities; immersed in culture, faith, diversity, and a bursting economy. A tale of two countries where tremendous prosperity bumps up next to utter and absolute poverty. The Weight of Silence is also a story of hope: demonstrating successes of both organizations such as the Miracle Foundation, and the efforts of giving individuals but also the effects of policy and government change. A highly recommended and enlightening read. A word of warning: I take no responsibility if after reading the book, you feel the unstoppable pull to jump on a plane with me to the colorful country of India.

A New Perspective

When most of us, including myself, see a movie like Hotel Rwanda or Slumdog Millionaire; watch a news story about an earthquake in another country that may have killed thousands and displaced tens of thousands more or the devastation of the 2004 Asian tsunami; or when we view a program about the poverty and despair in parts of Africa, how do we feel and how do we react? At best, we may think just for a few minutes how horrible it must be to be affected by such an event or how impossible living through such a situation must be. But as quickly as those thoughts emerge, they disappear. The fact is, most of us have never experienced anything close to the magnitude of this level of tragedy, desperation or despair. It is simply unimaginable, and incomprehensible to us and understandably so. We often almost subconsciously deny in a way, the fact that the event or scenario is even reality. As a result, such scenes in truth-based movies or horrific news stories are easily dismissed as we quickly go back to our own reality, to our own way of life, our own struggles. This, I am not comfortable with and is one of the compelling reasons to go on the journey I am about to make.

Toddlers sleeping alone on busy street curbs, just feet from the traffic rushing by, children that should be playing or in school, instead begging passersby for money, kids digging through trash cans in the rail station that they call home in the hopes of finding anything of value. Girls sold into the sex trade at age 12. Living conditions for millions of children and adults consist of a propped up piece of tin as a shelter, no running water and a ditch running down the street that serves as a bathroom. These are realities I will likely see within the first hours of arriving in India. Although I realize that, it is still hard to truly grasp. I think that to see such a different environment, such a different way of life, such a different kind of struggle than we face every day, is important and will impart an ability to view the world in a different light: To truly understand a little better the struggles that so many people go through.

I am not referring to a need to put my life into perspective, or to make me feel better about my surroundings. It’s also not about returning home and feeling guilty for what I have. Although I will undoubtedly benefit from this experience, this is not simply a self-serving excursion. There are a lot of things both in our communities as well as in our world that we can affect, even in just a small way. The more we understand, the more we have experienced and the broader views we develop, the better enabled we are to both comprehend and influence the world in which we live. I expect to return with both this new found perspective, but also knowing I have made a difference in the well being of a child’s life.

Why India? Why Miracle Foundation? What made you decide to do this?

Understandable questions. 25 million orphans are living in India—a number equivalent to the population of the entire state of Texas. An estimated 31% of children in India surviving past the age of one will die before the age of five. Children shouldn't have to suffer due to the environment that they were born into. Every child deserves a chance...from the basic needs of survival: food, shelter, health care and a nurturing environment continuing through the chance for education and opportunities.

The Miracle Foundation is local to Austin, transparent and doesn't profit on "voluntoursim". Their low overhead and track record of success means they are truly making a difference.

From a personal perspective, in addition to the impact of making a difference in a child's life, I expect an experience such as this that is outside of my comfort zone to not only be a challenge, but to be a life changing experience.