We’re now in the middle of the school year, and our kids are busy with their studies and after-school tutoring. We took in the following new kids this year, including (thankfully) the three boys who were removed from our care last year by their moms who live on the streets.

Our new kids this year include: baby Adarsh, Anand and Arvind (siblings), Anusha, Darshan, Gautham, Lalitha, Mohan, Saumya, Suma, Tunmai, small Nanjunda, and Vijayalakshmi and Vinuta (siblings).

At Karunya Mane, we are fortunate to have a wonderful person taking care of the kids, Mahesh, and a kind, loving, and hard-working cook named Sundaramma. She prepares healthy, nourishing, and very tasty meals that the kids love. Mahesh and “Aunty” come to us from a nearby town called Bannur, where they were trained by the founder of a well-run private school for poor village children.

Project Food and More now supports 46 destitute kids and their guardians with monthly care packages. Our newest additions include little Kavana, who lost dad to HIV two years ago. Mom and Kavana live in a village three hours from Mysore, and are alone. Mom doesn’t work often because she has to take care of Kavana, who is three years old but appears more like a one-year-old. Kavana is being treated for AIDS and tuberculosis. Also new to the PFM program are:

• Jayanth, a happy and sweet eight-year-old boy who lives in a grass shack with his grannie and dad; dad is too ill to work consistently and mom died in 2004;
• Madhu (girl) and Chinanna, who live with their mom in a slum; dad died in 2004;
• Anusha and her mom Shoba, who live in a slum; Anusha’s father is an alcoholic, refuses to seek treatment for his HIV, and provides no support to his family;
• Sreenevasa, a thin, shy four-year-old boy who lives in a slum area with his grandparents; mom died in 2005, dad drives an autorickshaw and refuses to seek treatment for his HIV.

New arrivals to our street program include little Raju, baby brother Lakshman, and his mom Sushila; Ameena and her mom Katija; Banu and baby Venkatesh; and Shivanna and his son Kartik. We helped admit Raju and Ameena to a pre-nursery school in their village so they would not roam the streets while their moms and dads begged. After about a month of sporadic attendance and lots of crying, Ameena and Raju now go to school daily and really enjoy their teacher!

Sushila’s husband has two wives (not uncommon in India) and is inconsistent with his support of Raju. Mom begs on the streets every day for money for food. Our Street People Program now supports Sushila with a weekly stipend.

Banu, a quiet, illiterate girl who came to the street about a year ago, seems about 16 years old. We do not know where she came from.

She recently had a little baby boy, Venkatesh, and they are now in our Street People Program. The baby’s father, also about 16 years old, helps out sporadically but is often unreliable and unsupportive.

Shivanna, dad of Kartik (age 9), is a street vendor. He earns between 60 and 100 rupees ($1.20 to $2.00) a day, and often has to work late in the city. Mom was hit by a bus and died a few years ago, and nobody is around to take care of Kartik at night until dad gets home. We visited Kartik’s house, which is really not a house; it is a cow shed attached to a house, and Kartik and dad sleep in a small side room with a dirt floor and no toilet or kitchen. After this school year is over, Kartik will be admitted to Karunya Mane.

We continue our presence on the street to assist those without homes and resources with basic needs. The street women whom we have known and worked with for a long time refer many of our newcomers to us.