Getting to know us!

 Students ask to visit Brighter Future children

It is always heart-warming when young people express an interest in learning about Brighter Future.

Some students from Maharaja College, SSSS college and a couple of ex students from Srinivasa college contacted Victor Director  to ask if they could meet the children who live at Shanti Nivas. the girls are hidden by the boys!

The visit was to mark the birthday of one of India's famous heroes - Narendranath Vivikenanda. Born in 1863, his birthday  - January 12th. is known as 'India Youth Day'.  Swami Vivikenandra  was a religious man, philosopher and poet. He traveled widely, learning about many religions and ideas, in India, Europe and in America. His spiritual leader, or guru, was Ramakrishna.

I saw  his 20 tenets for a good life  inscribed on a pillar in Rishikesh, on my first cycle ride in 1994.
                He has many famous quotes. this one is particularly pertinent to Brighter Future's mission.

                           "If a poor boy cannot come to education, education must come to him."

The students gave the children books about Vivikananda, pens and some dress material. They also played games with the children.

New mosquito nets.

I arrived back at Vizianagaram  yesterday after a trip to North India, to Allahabad and Patna, to visit former colleagues from my days working as a physiotherapy technician in part of the National Leprosy Control programme.
 My friend Rajni gave me two boxes to bring on the 24 hour train journey. They contained 25 strong, double mosquito nets. The children sleep on mattresses on the floor under the nets, which tuck in under and around the mattresses.

Vizianagaram has had hardly any winter this year but it arrived 2 days ago with night time temperatures of  14 degrees.With no glass in the  windows and  concrete floors  this can seem pretty cold to the children, I was cold with two cotton blankets, so more blankets were distributed to the children this evening . As it is still the Maker Sankranti holiday, the Hindu New Year, the children have no school and are watching TV as a treat.

Brighter Future Christmas Celebrations

This blog is taken from a Christmas news item composed by Hemant, Victor's PA.

Hemant compared the entertainment and was also photographer on the 22nd, the day of the children's party. He has prepared this account of the Christmas celebrations.

I let some children take my camera to record their day so I have added their photos to Hemant's article

Brighter Future Children 

Christmas Celebrations, 2015

“Hurray!! "Its party and celebration time” all children were in this mood with lots of 
preparations and practices for their individual and group performances. All were excited 
and waited for the 22nd of December as there was Christmas celebration with lots of 
songs, Magic shows, dramas, and dances.  Christmas was celebrated  this year with entire Brighter Future Family at the Shanti Nivas campus.

The Rainbow children woke up early, 6 o’clock and got ready for the celebration with their respective belongings for their performances. . Vehicles started picking up all the children from the Rainbow home at 8 o”clock in the morning and dropped them at Shanti Nivas. All the children travelled, along with care staff and Home mothers, in the hired vehicles.. 

Prem Nivas children treached at 9 o’clock in the morning. for them we arranged two 
vans. Home mother and care staff brought all the children safely from Prem Nivas, 

Gajapathinagaram to Shanti Nivas. Everyone had breakfast at Shanti Nivas

Karuna Nivas children had reached  Shanti Nivas the  previous day as they live 100 km away. Vehicles were arranged from the railway station.

Among the guests were children from Tribal villages in Orissa ( Odisha).

At 10 o'clock Pastor Elisha led all the children and staff  in the auspicious prayer. After prayer all the children started playing and the youngest children decorated the Christmas tree with Manyaji.The performers practiced their songs and dances.Boys played cricket on the Sue Davies sports ground
 Sharp 12.30pm there was an announcement for.Christmas feast. All the children enjoyed the feast; menu of the feast is Biriyani, chicken curry, cauliflower curry, rice, rasam, curd and sweets.

After lunch all the children took rest for a while. Mean while all the invitees started coming to the campus. College boys and staff were busy in decorating the stage for the evening performances. Boys and staff decorated the stage with colorful balloons, glitter garlands, lights, Christmas messages and more. The stage was set.We arranged snacks for all the children  are fond of sweets and ice creams so we arranged ice creams for all the children. Children are so happy by seeing the ice creams and enjoyed a lot.

At 5 o'clock the distribution of gifts to the children began, followed by the dancing and other entertainment..

Before the  cultural programme Baptist church pastor Rev Roland Garu gave message to all the children and staff of Brighter Future and prayed, after him the Baptist church asst Pastor Deva Kumar also prayed and gave a beautiful message about Christmas and Santa Clause. After that Mrs. Manya Norris, Pastor Elisha and Director gave speech 
and wish all the children Merry Christmas.  

     
Prior to the message and prayer offering, Gifts were distributed to all the children and 
patients all homes. Gifts are distributed by guests and elders.


The main attraction and interesting thing was gift distributions to children and the cultural programme and performance by Rainbow, Prem Nivas, Shanti Nivas, Karuna Nivas and Rayagada Children. 

Gifts are distributed to children by Director, Mrs.Manya Norris, Pastor Elisha, and elders of the organization. 

After the gift distributions the cultural programme started with a beautiful group dance performance by Young girls of Rainbow home.

 Programme continued with so many beautiful and energetic dance performances by boys and girls of Rainbow, Prem Nivas, Shanti Nivas, Karuna Nivas and Rayagada children home.
The centre of attraction of the cultural event was the Tribal dance of Southern Odisha 
“Dhimsa” performed by the tribal children of Rayagada children home. That performance boosted up the entire cultural event.

In between the group and solo dance performances there was a Magic show by a
young boy of Rainbow children home, moral and comic plays by young girls and boys of 
Nivas under Mrs. Manya Norris direction. 

There was a poetry drama on Lord Jesus’s birth by all home children. Finally the cultural event ended with a beautiful comic drama performed by elder boys of Rainbow home.Between the group and solo dance performances there was a Magic show by a young boy of Rainbow children home, Moral and comic plays by   on young girls and boys of Prem Nivas under Mrs. Manya Norris direction. There was a poetry drama of Jesus birth performed by elder boys and girls  of Rainbow home

The next event was the cutting of the Christmas cake 

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The final item was the singing of SIlent NIght by candle light.

The day ended with supper  

Every little bit helps!

Karen, my daughter, and I are pleased to announce that our fundraising efforts were rewarded with a donation of £37 to the British Legion Poppy Appeal and £205 to Brighter Future for the 76 poppies we made.

. Karen sold lots of them to the three choirs she belongs to. The bank manager admired them so we will target the bank if we make them next year!

The quince jelly making is finished and selling well.Our thanks to the people who donated the quinces.

Our  next big fundraising event was the sale of Christmas and general  cards at St Edmund’s Church on November 15th.  Selling after each service at my church we made  a further  £210 for Brighter Future.

The card making, which I began in August, and was assisted by Karen, and to which  Sarah donated 100 of her lovely cards, were on sale for two days at the Bury St Edmunds Christmas Fayre in St Mary’s Church on 27 and 28th November..

 As Karen and Sarah were both involved for much of the time singing with the choir and running their choir stall, Simon bravely volunteered to run the Brighter Future stall for us.

 Of  course I was in India by then, so it was very good of the Karen, Sarah and Simon to take over the task of transporting, setting up the stall with pictures of the Indian children, selling, standing for hours and clearing away at the end of the two days.

There were craft items and quince jelly for sale too!  The quince jelly was made by Karen with some help in the chopping from me. It involved hours and hours of boiling and straining. 

Our thanks to Suzzie, a local sponsor who gave us scarves to sell and to Teresa for her Christmas pudding novelty table decorations.

There were a number of people that knew about us from last year’s sale – Karen said Brighter Future had quite a fan club!

The total raised for Brighter Future at this Christmas Fayre was £383!!

 The left overs from St Mary's sale were offered for sale at a Mini Christmas Sale in the crypt of St Edmunds. They were selling to the same parishionerrs as on 15th November so they did very well to sell anything at all., Another way of looking at it is that the same people were prepared to give more money to Brighter Future.
Karen was singing at the local hospital so Simon 

set up the stall and Karen arrived a bit later.

 Karen and Simon raised another 47pounds for us.


A grand total of 845 pounds !



Being ex teachers we would like this donation to go into the Education Fund for the HIV children. This fund goes towards paying for college fees and student's expences.

The pre Christmas rush

     

The Prem Nivas Christmas Tree

is made of small tree branches that were collected locally and  assembled by Janaki and Ashok.

The sticks were wound with green lights and the whole structure was planted in a cement flower pot.  





The Primary School children made decorations to hang on the tree.

 




The next job was to refurbish the crib figures which each child  made of pegs and material two years ago.A large star has been fixed on the roof of the main hall. 

The  tree lights lasted two weeks so today Janaki has gone to Gajapathinagaram village  for two new sets of lights. 

The High School children are having their quarterly exams this week and trying to practice dances and songs for the Christmas party as well.

At Shanti Nivas the lights are put up by our electrician as they are strung all around the parapet of the Hospice and Thompson House. Swathi ,the children's housemother, is teaching  songs and dances and we will put up the tree on the 20th . It is not a very big tree as it was bought from Tesco's several years ago and came as my  hand luggage. The smallest children put the balls on it after some lights have been installed by the older boys. We can't find the crib figures so will have to make new ones!

'Old Macdonald' masks

Prem Nivas children had a rehearsal of their Christmas songs when they were connected to Monkston School 5th and 6th year students in Milton Keynes by Skype. This relationship between the children was established two years ago.  The Headmaster and his wife sponsor two of the Brighter Future children

It was time to get the Shanti Nivas vegetable garden ready for sowing. Pydi, Nagaraju and 

The Prem Nivas garden is not started yet. 

Yerrinaidu were my willing helpers. The boys were shown what to do by a neighbouring farmer.
Ladies fingers, aubergines, beans, melon type vegetables and green leaves planted. Tomatoes, spinach and herbs to go in soon.

The soil is so hard it needs ploughing with oxen or a tractor first.

Our Hospice

Brighter Future has a Hospice at Shanti Nivas.

It was built at the same time as the children's home  and was funded by the Pickford Memorial Trust. David Pickford was a long time friend of our then Chairman, Danny Parisipogula. David was a trustee of BFIT for many years. The Hospice was built and funded by his family. as a memorial to David. It  opened in August 2012.

The need for a hospice, where mothers and children could be admitted together to avoid separation, was apparent as the other only centre was up to  a hundred kilometres from our area of opperation. Run by Rotary they only admitted patients for two or three days and would not take children.

The aim of our Hospice is to offer nursing care to HIV/AIDS patients during the acute phases of their illness, to offer support during the periods when patients need to adapt to the severity of starting ART treatment and to offer palliative care for the terminally ill. The dying have often been abandoned by relatives and are homeless. Their alterative can be  to die on the streets.

 Many of our severely ill patients are suffering from co-infection with TB. They may have been only recently diagnosed as having HIV AIDS. The HIV virus goes through 5 recognisable stages until it reaches its terminal AIDS phase.Patients suffer fevers and body pains, weakness, nausea and diarrhoea, especially if they are protein defficient. 

 Malnutrition is endemic among people whose main diet is rice served with only vegetable flavoured water called rasam.Fresh and green vegetables are rarely affordable and if available are cooked for a long time which destroys the vitamin content. Lentils, the main source of protein among traditionally vegetarian people, are very expensive and watered down to go further..

The patients need building up with vitamins and a protein rich diet if they are to tolerate and respond to the anti-retroviral drugs.Our food and drugs bill is therefore naturally large!. 

We have one or two supporters in the UK who contribute £10 a month towards the care of a hospice patient and would dearly like to find more!  
We need to find  funding  or grants.Until recently had some help. from the Right Now Foundation.( who are child orientated). However the numbers of children admitted was declining and the adult admissions increased.  The grant ceased in March 2015. 

To attract a nurse and doctor to work with HIV infected people is difficult and expensive. There is stigma attached to even working with HIV/AIDS patients. 
We have a very good nurse who is experienced in caring for HIV patients and are we are shortly to have a well qualified doctor who will visit the hospice twice a week and be on call at all times.

Over the years I have sent proposals to all the main HIV/AIDS charities. they say carry on with the good work  but they have a policy of not accepting un-solicited proposals and also  like to give to government departments. They want to have large numbers of beneficieries and are not interested in small genuine grass roots organisations like ours. 

We need to find several small trusts able to give grants of a £1000 or more. 

If you have any contacts do let me (pmanya.norris@gmail.com) or Brighter Future International Trust (brighterfuturefriends@gmail.com) know.

To give you some idea of the cost of running the hospice the nurse’s salary is £720 pa., the cleaner and helper £360 each. Medicines vitamins and supplements cost £5000pa and food, electricity and transport account for another £4000pa.We need to find several small trusts able to  give small grants of a £1000 or more.

This year five children have died among loving friends and carers. 
Brighter Future has also paid for them to be transported to their home villages and cremated according to the local custom. 

Congratulations to Sandeep

Sandeep is a student at                                           college . he is studying Engineering. he is delighted to have passed his first year exams with a mark of   %.

The chance of a lifetime!

                    

         

                               

Brighter Future has been caring for many young people since they were first found as 6 or 7 year olds. They were suffering from HIV. Their parents had died of AIDS. Their grandparents were old, very poor or simply could not manage their severe symptoms. There was no treatment available and hundreds of children like them were dying each week. Seeing them today it is hard to believe that they came to Brighter Future as malnourished, undersized children with skin diseases, open wounds, diarrhoea and sickness.

Many of the children had been denied their early years of education by schools, because of thier home circumstances, being orphaned or through the stigma of being being HIV positive.

Brighter Future works in a predominantly agricultural area where literacy is low, unemployment high and the weather a succession of droughts and cyclones. 

When we developed our strategy of caring for HIV+ children we knew that we would need to give them the opportunities that 'normal' children have -  medical care to help them survive, and the chance of education, training and independent living. 

The Problem

In our three homes for HIV children we have a number of boys over the school leaving age, who are behind in their studies, have lost confidence in their ability to catch up with their peers and some who are simply not academically inclined.

Prem Nivas senior boys.

 Rather than suffering from being regarded as backward the young people are capable of taking a technical training. Some have already demonstrated a leaning towards electrical repairs and mechanical problem solving.

The fear, stigma and ignorance attached to HIV infection means that the children cannot get jobs or training if it is known that they are HIV positive. To be skilled and experienced would give them an opening in the local employment market, self- employment or to form a joint venture unit.

The Solution to this problem has been given to Brighter Future India in the form of a grant from The Betty Lawes Foundation

Brighter Future approached the Foundation with a plan to establish a small vocational training unit providing training in electrical and plumbing skills. The area around Vizianagaram is being rapidly developed with private houses and apartments creating a demand for these skills. Victor has identified both a qualified electrician and a local plumbing skilled sanitary ware shop owner, who are willing to train our young people and  employ them when suitable skilled.

We already have a building available on the Shanti Nivas site 5 miles from Vizianagaram. All that would be needed is a small extension, security gates and teaching equipment.

Currently there are 10 boys (over 14 yrs) in need of vocational training from the three HIV+ homes .  

Self-confidence and self-reliance can replace the young people’s earlier sense of failure and helplessness.

With a skill our boys would be able to find employment in the large and growing development of surrounding districts where such skills are in demand, especially in the newly formed State of Andhra Pradesh.

Employment will enable them to break out of the cycle of poverty and avoid the emotionally draining stigma of being HIV+.

We thank the Trustees of the Betty Lawes Foundation for their trust and support in giving this opportunity to our children.