Anjum

PEACE IN THE MIDST OF CHAOS!

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic world over has not just been physical; it had a huge impact on people’s mental health too. Anjum’s parents were among that 40% across India who had a strong impact on their mental health due to the pandemic.

Anjum lives in one of the poorest slums in Mumbai. The five-member family lives in a tiny one-room house. Her father works as a daily-wage painter and earns around Rs. 6000/- a month depending on the work that he gets. With the very little that he remains after he has paid for rent, water and electricity, he struggles hard to provide food for the family. Quality education for the children was a dream that came true only when Vision Rescue met Anjum’s family in their slum community.

Anjum joined our Beacon Learning Centre in March 2019. Along with quality pre-primary education, your gifts reached out to her with hearty nutritious meals, stationery, regular health checkups, and dental assessments, educational material, and much more. She was one among 400 impoverished children who came daily to our Vision Rescue Beacon Learning Centre inside their slum community for daily lessons and food in the academic year 2019-20.

When the first wave of COVID-19 hit India in March 2020, Anjum’s father couldn’t go to work anymore. With no savings and zero sources of income, Anjum’s parents had no choice but to panic. Due to the sudden lockdown, they struggled to provide even the basic necessities to their children. The only thing that was doing well in the pandemic was a grocery store near their home. Anjum’s father somehow got work there and started selling daily necessities such as chocolates, soaps, groceries to feed his children back home.

Gradually, the pandemic started affecting their mental health rather than their physical health. They were overcome by fear and worry, wondering how long they would live hand-to-mouth, hoping to survive one day at a time.

Before things could get any worse, kind supporters like you stepped forward to help Anjum and her family with groceries each month throughout the pandemic. This support has continued from April last year to date.

“Without Vision Rescue, it was impossible to feed our children during the pandemic,” says Anjum’s mother.

Just when they had overcome this hurdle, the monsoon arrived and their roof started to leak. The family of five spent many sleepless nights as the rains soaked their belongings and the floor of their hutment began to flood. Once again your donations stepped in with relief and provided tarpaulins to cover their house.

All this while, schools were shut across the country thanks to the pandemic and Anjum’s education with us at Vision Rescue Beacon Learning Centre had come to a hard stop. With the help of hundreds of generous supporters like you, Vision Rescue was able to start online education for our children in these impoverished slum communities. Because of your generosity, the doors of education stayed open for Anjum even during the pandemic. For thousands of other marginalized children, without access to digital devices, the last 1.5 years have meant the end of their schooling. But your support ensured that Anjum was empowered to continue in education.

Without these interventions on monthly groceries, online education, family counseling, and resources building, Anjum would have been at risk of being exploited for child labor, human trafficking, substance abuse, and other social evils that prey on vulnerable girls like her. Anjum has completed one academic year online with us and now is enrolled in Senior Kindergarten.

During this time, Vision Rescue was also able to provide Covid-19 vaccines to Anjum’s parents and provide them with counseling and encouragement to manage their mental health during the pandemic. The times they’ve walked through have been incredibly difficult. The poor in our slum communities have borne the heaviest brunt of the pandemic nationwide. But it’s the kindness and generosity of each of you in the Vision Rescue community of supporters that have carried this family and the families of 1300+ children through.