The project
It does not really matter that we follow different ways
while we arrive at the same aim.
Mahatma Gandhi
No way for us to play with Don Quichotte, to change hundred-years-old usages.
It would be necessary to change the Indian society on his foundation.
Who are us? Are we able to make that?
The project is very simple, at least in its comprehension: to be able to open accommodations where they could receive rickshaw-wallahs, give them the possibility of coming to have a rest, to take a shower, to wash their linen. It can seem aberrant, but these are their daily practical problems.
As any plan, it has a history, one beginning. We had, in last December, more strict winter than ordinarily. To see these poor men sleeping on their rickshaws outside, huddled up on to protect themselves from cold was difficult, not to say untenable. We therefore used the ancient places of our agency as dormitory for some wallahs in our neighbourhood. This initiative spread very fast within their community and we immediately found ourselves overcrowded. It would have been necessary to push walls (promiscuity has pervert effects), our reservoir of water and our water-heater were quickly emptied. We could not therefore accommodate everybody. Thanks to first donations of our customers (that I still thank) we could distribute bed blankets. Favour has the Sikh community (who always answers present at this type of initiative) hot and balanced meals (tchai [Indian tea with some milk and with spices], cookies, dal [dish based on lenses] and chapatis [type of plain round flat cake used as bread]) were distributed.
An improvised shelter, some days a year, is not enough.
Cold, rain, strong hot season are habitual.
What we need?
→ We need everything! ←
We need real buildings, bed blankets, water tankers, water-heater, buckets (here they take shower without tub), winter and summer clothes.
|