Mein Azad Hoon - On Our Freedom
Just Received: Women farmers in Yavatmal district, Maharashtra receive bicycles today that will help them reach their farms and sell produce. Geeta Pusnake’s farm is 3 kms from her village and she says she will use the bicycle everyday. So far 1500 bicycles have been distributed from AID’s You Go Girl campaign.
You can Gift A Bicycle today and the independence it gives.
Mein Azad Hoon!
In 1947, on this august day, India won its independence forcing the sun to set on the British empire. Every person in India became free.
And not just from the British. We became free to express ourselves and act against all oppression and exploitation including within our families from patriarchy, in the society from cruelty based on caste, religion, race, gender and orientation, and by the very system that governs us that must remain answerable and accountable, in sync with ideals of liberty that new generations in the free world take for granted.
Recently young people seeking to improve the education system across the country have started reporting on conditions in their schools, including shortage of teachers and lack of access to toilets or drinking water. Videos of children jumping across broken bridges or showing the mud puddle filled road that they walk on to get to school have brought urgent attention to these basic needs.
Over 100 million people in India are of such simple means that on most days they go to sleep hungry looking for work. It is humbling to realize that their voice is one of the only things they possess which they can use to get themselves out of the unjust web of poverty.
Pushp ki abhilasha (The Flower’s Wish), written by poet Makhanlal Chaturvedi during India’s non-violent freedom struggle, is about the flower that doesnt want to be plucked to foster romance, or laid on an emperor’s coffin, or to be even used in the worship of gods. Instead it expresses its wish thus –
Mujhe tod lena banmali, uss path par tum dena phenk,
Matra bhumi par sheesh chadhane, jis path jaayen veer anek
Oh gardner, pluck me to adorn that path,
On which people with courage die for their motherland.
When we stand up for a just society, some of that courage is born again.
Wishing you a happy 80th India Independence day!
-AID Volunteers
Happening Today!
Today AID India is launching Eureka Children’s Libraries benefitting 500 villages by partnering with 50 NGOs in Tamil Nadu. Zoom calls are happening simultaneously from all these places which AID volunteers in the US are also joining!
The summer session of Eureka Learning Beyond Limits that started in the second week of July is underway. This summer 90 high schoolers and undergrads from the US are engaging with 504 children in villages via 42 parallel sessions of online classes every Saturday and Sunday. See pic.
A generous donor is providing a 1:1 match for girls’ bathrooms with toilets which are much needed in villages. With the match the impact of your donation is doubled. Can we together help facilitate construction of 100 bathrooms?
Even as we share the fruits of freedom with each other, Assam is in a dire situation, being ravaged by epic floods. You can help provide relief by supporting AID’s All India Relief Fund.