S.O.S. Program

Helping Where We Can

Our help does not stop at the front gate of our centres.  If we become aware of a situation in the community that does not fit our usual profile, we will still endeavour to help if we can.

There are slums just outside our Delhi centre, containing many children, and yet they are not homeless nor are they orphans;  they are simply under-privileged.  The risk is that the parents of these children are more likely to send them off begging during the day than to send them off to school.  Our Outreach Officers will try to convince these parents to send their school-age children to our Delhi centre during the day to attend our Bridge Schooling, free of charge, in an attempt to instill some motivation towards attending a public school.

We recently became aware of a frail old man in a village near one of our centres, whose roof on his home (a hut actually) was in disrepair and he was freezing at night.  We replaced his roof.

We have paid for cataract operations and other medical procedures where local people in need have been unable to afford them.  We have fed starving people at our centres.  We have helped the elderly to pay for their (extremely cheap) monthly Government “hand-out” of rice, because they couldn’t even afford that (100 Rupees = US$2.20).

One cold winter, we took a boy dying from hypothermia into our Lucknow centre.  Nobody else would assist him.  Even the Police who were present were asking us why we would take the risk of him dying in our care? The hospital would not help.  Of course, we took him in… at least his last living hours were spent in the company of people who cared.

Expenditure

The expenses incurred by this Program include:

• Wages for the staff involved on a part-time basis
• First Aid equipment and consumables
• Cost of Hospitalisations and Medical Procedures
• Monetary assistance

Resources

This program is generally administered at the discretion of our President, Ravi Rai.

To implement our S.O.S. activities, our centres have:

• Staff to assist in matter of money or food donations
• A designated Medical Supervisor
• A comprehensive First-Aid kit in each centre

Read about the next Program.