Chandni is just five, and she’s the second youngest among five children who live off their father Shabuddin’s meagre tailoring income. Food had always been scarce in their tin-sheet home in the slum community, and Chandni’s body, like her siblings’, had borne the brunt of years spent in lack. When we first met Chandni, in 2016, she was malnourished. Her father had no money to even take her to hospital, as he had spent everything on his wife Shrunissa’s last delivery and its surgical complications. His words at that time were, “If my wife and daughter are meant to live, they will. There’s nothing more I can do.” That’s when you reached out to rescue both Chandni and Shrunissa.
Chandni and Shrunissa were immediately referred to one of our partner municipal hospitals for priority treatment and it’s your donations that helped fund their medication. Both mother and daughter are well today only because you chose to care for them back then.
Today, Chandni is in her third academic year at our preschool inside her slum community. She loves drawing and reciting poems in class and she even wants to become a teacher herself! Besides the nutritional supplements, the daily meal you gift Chandni has strengthened her body and she is no longer malnourished.
As for Shrunissa, she was so overwhelmed by your support in her time of desperate need, that she grew to confide in our community worker. She opened up about facing marital issues and domestic violence often. Our community worker could counsel the family and the couple are on the road to restoration.
A few months ago Shrunissa mentioned that her older two children were down with fevers and cough often. She listened to our community worker’s advice and got both children examined at a neighbouring health centre. It turned out that the fevers were tuberculosis. The children are on the nine-month treatment course as of now.
Your donations have rescued even the youngest in the family, Tamanna. She’s a part of our nursery today, and she can’t wait to grow up with us just like her sister Chandni has over the years.
