News

The parental units are touring SE Asia.

The brother has them out of his hair, they have him out of theirs. These twin joys will be short-lived though.

In the papers:
There are storms and floods in Southern India. This is a great opportunity to give. Same with the earthquakes in Indonesia and Samoa. I suspect these flash crises receive a fair bit of public aid. The instant destruction tears at your heart, and hopefully loosens purse strings.

Not in the papers:
In India - the slow erosion of human capital (and the silent crumpling of little lives) when underprivileged children escape the quicksand of hard labour to attend school. The schooling is often free, but the children attend school on empty stomachs.

Imagine sending your child hungry to school. It probably hurts you to imagine such a day. You might've been running late, a water pipe might've broken, or for whatever reason, your child missed breakfast that day. You'd hurt. Imagine then that you weren't able to pack her lunch, and she didn't take her little purse, the one you keep the emergency lunch money stuffed in. The poor thing would have to sit through hour after hour of class running on last night's dinner.

Imagine next, a situation where this empty, whimpering stomach isn't an accident - you just aren't able to feed your child. You want her to learn, you want her to build a life better than yours, but you can't afford to feed her one square meal. Perhaps if she helped you till the land, repair the neighbour's clothes, you might have been able to feed her, but then she wouldn't be able to go to school. Your life hasn't amounted to anything, and you're powerless to make your daughter's life any different.

Akshayapatra provides food for underprivileged schoolchildren. Please give.