"My son used to kick me when he was in my womb. Why make an issue when he kicked me in my old age?" reasons a very forgiving Shakti Dasi. The widow travelled 2300 kms from Tripura to Vrindavan after her only son violently beat her with a burning plank of wood and broke her knee one evening. She had to leave behind the business she had built with her husband who had died a few years back. Shakti ended up on the streets of Brindavan begging for food and shelter. But when Winnie Singh of Maitri saw Shakti in a frail state in tattered clothes, she brought her to the shelter home where Shakti gets food, care and medicines. What more, with Maitri’s intervention, Shakti reconciled with her son - and daughter-in-law, and now travels home to Tripura twice a year to spend time with her grandchildren. But she is not leaving Maitri, as this has become her family.Not every elderly widow who comes to Vrindavan after being abandoned by her family gets as lucky as Shakti. Many of them often end up living a lonely life and begging to survive on the streets. Maitri aspires to take care of every widow in need of help.<img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/ce101369-528c-4d37-bc1d-1118b9925af3.jpg" />Maitri’s Project Jeevan to the rescueAbandoned, elderly widows are the amongst the most vulnerable in India. After being thrown out of their often abandoned by their own children and are forced to beg for food and shelter. “Through Project Jeevan, Maitri houses aging widow mothers in two ashrams in Vrindavan and Radhakund (Mathura), providing them with wellness and well-being. The programme also reaches out to widow mothers beyond the ashrams with fruit, milk and healthcare services,” explains Winnie Singh, co-founder and executive director, Maitri India.Save homeless elderly widows from begging on the streetsMost widows who make their way to Vrindavan are abandoned by their families, often after years of abuse. They come here hoping they will spend the rest of their days in prayer and devotion. But most live in impoverished conditions on the streets and in dingy rooms. Since poor living conditions often cause a wide range of health ailments, including respiratory infections and chronic conditions, Maitri comes to their rescue through its Project Jeevan.The project aims to:<ul><li>Provide meals leading to improved health and wellbeing</li><li>Make physical and mental health services accessible</li><li>Offer necessary quality aged care and assisted living support</li><li>Increase awareness on and engagement around the struggles of abandoned widow mothers</li></ul><img src="https://cfstatic.give.do/1abfb906-563b-4747-85b8-8af2071a2856.jpg" />Project Jeevan needs your support to help those in need of food, healthcare and well-being. Donate now.“Maitri urgently needs your support to provide food, clothing and healthcare to sustain these widow mothers who are prone to more illnesses as they age,” appeals Winnie.Maitri believes in a woman’s right to dignity in life and death, more so a mother. Our help will enable Maitri to save hundreds of abandoned widows from a life of begging, and restore the respect, dignity, and identity they deserve.

Save abandoned, elderly widow mothers of Vrindavan from begging on streets

For a mother who has spent her entire life loving and raising her child, being beaten and mercilessly thrown out onto the streets by her own son is too heartbreaking to overcome. But this is a common story among the elderly residents of the Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram. “I’ve seen mothers in old and torn clothes, their bodies smelling and their hands and feet rotting and covered in maggots,” shares Dr. G.P. Bhagat, founder of the ashram. These abandoned elderly men and women lay starving on the streets hoping for someone to rescue them from their suffering. But most people walk past them without a second glance. “Like this”, Dr. Bhagat explains, “many elders die on the roads.”Since 2003, SHEOWS (Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society) has rescued over 10,000 elderly people from the streets and given them a home with care and support. The elderly staying at the ashram have all been abandoned by their families and have nowhere else to live. Your support can give them comfort after their abandonment. Donate now.Donate easily through UPI, all debit/credit cards and net banking. Charitable donations to this fundraising campaign are tax exempted under 80G of the Income Tax Act (India). Safe and loving homeFor 20 years, SHEOWS has been providing free shelter, nutritious food three times a day, clothing, medical care, recreation activities and emotional support to abused and disabled elderly people rescued from the streets of Delhi. The Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram has a dedicated rescue team that saves the elderly from the streets and gives them immediate medical care upon their arrival at the home. To tend to the multiple health complications of the seniors, the home has a medical facility with doctors and nurses, a physiotherapy unit, a pathology lab, a digital X-ray monitoring machine and a pharmacy to provide 24-hour care to older adults anytime they require assistance, even during emergencies. Dr. Bhagat prioritizes the health of the seniors and ensures that they receive three balanced meals a day based on their precise health requirements. Need for the fundraiserThe humanitarian mission of SHEOWS is making an impact in the area, as more and more people are being rescued and brought to Guru Vishram Vridh Ashram. To meet the financial costs of running the home, SHEOWS needs support to continue providing the residents with all the facilities that they need. This includes constant care and round-the-clock medical attention, nutritious food and maintaining a hygienic environment to keep the seniors in comfort and good health. Dr. Bhagat explains that as the number of residents is increasing, SHEOWS needs support for food and medicines. “I request you to help these elderly parents lead a peaceful life.”Donate now to help Dr. Bhagat continue caring for the 500 destitute elderly and giving them shelter, food, medical care and the will to carry on living despite their tragic abandonment by their families. Your support will enable SHEOWS to keep serving abandoned senior citizens and help them recover from the trauma of abandonment and life on the streets. “I have been serving these elderly as if they were my own parents”, shares Dr. Bhagat. “I want only one thing - their tears should vanish and they should have a smile on their faces.” To help Dr. Bhagat achieve this dream, your support is critical. Donate now to help SHEOWS care for more abandoned elderly. Donate to this fundraiser by Give, India’s largest online donation platform, to support SHEOWS in their mission to rescue the abandoned elderly from the streets and give them shelter, food, medical care, recreational activities and emotional support.

Help Dr. Bhagat care for 500+ elderly parents rescued from abuse and homelessness

“What will happen to them after me? I am 80+. I spend sleepless nights,” worries ex-Air Force officer, Group Captain AC Barua while talking about the future of the 28 destitute women under his care. “They have nobody in this world, sometimes they don’t remember their own names. They are absolutely alone,” he informs us as he goes from one room to the other meeting all the women who live at Seneh, the only home where they are loved and taken care of. After fighting for his country all his life, this octogenarian is now fighting to rescue homeless and abandoned women from dying on the streets. But he cannot do it alone. “Everyday I keep on getting calls from here and there. ‘Oh! there’s a woman lying here. Can you help?’ But I don’t dare to go and help because I don’t have the money. I don’t have the resources, our resources are very limited,” explains Gr. Capt. Barua who is lovingly called ‘Sir’ and ‘Deuta’ (father in Assamese) by the residents of Seneh. With your help, 80-year-old Group Captain Barua can fulfill his mission of rescuing abandoned and homeless women from dying on the streets, alone. Donate nowDonate easily through UPI, all debit/credit cards and net banking. All donations to this fundraising campaign are tax exempted under 80G of the Income Tax Act (India), &amp; 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (USA).Seneh- a home filled with love, care and hopeThe residents of Seneh often don’t remember who they are, where they have come from. Many times these are women with mental health conditions and considered being a witch due to superstitious beliefs and beaten up as a result. They are victims of domestic abuse or widow mothers who are considered to be a burden on the family. Group Captain Barua has not only rescued them from critical conditions, he has provided them with urgent medical care, food and above all, a free safe shelter where they can live with love and care. Among these residents is Sarala Kalita who fled to save herself from the tortures of her alcoholic husband only to face neglect and trauma from her brothers- and sisters-in-law. “Both my brothers and their wives urged my father to leave me somewhere as they didn’t want to take care of me anymore. One day my brother’s wife didn’t even let me have food at home. She just wanted me to leave and go away. So that’s why, my father got in touch with Seneh through someone, and handed me over to Sir to take care of me,” says Sarita who has found joy in living at Seneh. “Coming to Seneh, it felt like I got a new life altogether. Sir has given me a harmonium. I love singing. It makes me forget everything and takes me to someplace else entirely,” she adds. More women like Sarala can find their way to a loving home like Seneh. All they need is a little bit of your kindness. “It is difficult to make both ends meet”To sustain their daily expenditure, Capt Barua needs approx ₹3 lakh a month and arranging the funds is a mammoth challenge for the NGO. “Our expenses are growing day by day. Residents are growing older, their sicknesses are increasing. At times we have to give them special food. They require more care so we have to get more employees. About half of them require leading around, 1-2 has to be fed also. It will be very difficult to sustain it unless we get help,” he added. One act of your kindness can save these abandoned women, with no one in this world, from struggling on the streets to survive. At 80+ Gr. Capt. Barua cannot sustain Seneh on his own. “With folded hands, I appeal to all. Please come and please help us. Let us help these people, these old people who have nobody in this world. They are dying. They will die on the streets,” he urged. Donate to this fundraiser by Give.do to support retired Air Force officer, Group Captain Barua in his mission to rescue abandoned and homeless women from dying on the streets.

After fighting for India, former Air Force officer is now fighting to save abandoned women. Help him, donate now

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Waste Warriors is a for-impact solid waste management organisation. Our journey began in 2010 in the littered mountains of Dharamshala with just empty bags, some gloves, a few volunteers, and a vision to clean India.Since 2010, over 400 million tourists have visited the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand and Himachal where we work, so there is a dire need build waste management systems to mitigate the impact of waste pollution, especially plastics, in this eco-sensitive region and further downhill into major Indian rivers. Waste Warriors now has over 80 staff, including formalized waste workers, working to build sustainable waste management models in the urban sprawl of Dehradun, in the tourist hills of Dharamshala, by the Ganga river in holy Rishikesh, and in forest villages around Corbett Tiger Reserve near Ramnagar and Govind Wildlife Sanctuary in Uttarkashi.We focus on community behavioural change, waste infrastructure development, collaborations with government bodies, and the upliftment and livelihood development of all waste workers.

Donations through Give Foundation, registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961 are tax-deductible.

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Vishal Kumar

Waste Warriors Society

This nonprofit is registered as a charitable trust under section 12A of India's Income Tax Act, 1961.

This nonprofit is registered under section 80G of India's Income Tax Act, 1961. This means you can deduct 50% of the donation you made through your tax return.

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With the massive negative impact of the Coronavirus and the spread of COVID-19, Waste Warriors is committed to providing support and relief to communities of waste pickers and those in the informal waste sector. These families and their breadwinners will be hit very hard by this crisis and the lockdown. There are countless waste workers for whom staying at home means a fate worse than isolation. It will very soon mean no income, little food, and worsening hygiene. These neglected communities need our support, now more than ever, because staying at home is the hardest of their options. They rely heavily on basic income earned from daily wages or sale of recyclables. But their risk of contracting COVID-19 from waste is also very high. 
 We are setting up a relief fund to distribute kits for food rations, hygiene, and safety for around 600 waste workers. We are already in positive discussions with many stakeholders and authorities to provide these kits, which will include 1) Dry food rations, 2) Masks, 3) Sanitising items, 4) Soap, and 5) Gloves. We will also provide training on how to properly use these items, a step we've already taken with our own formally employed Green Workers who have been assured paid leave and are now safe at home. We will be working closely with the authorities to ensure the safe distribution of these kits. 
 Mitigating the spread of COVID-19 amongst these underserved and neglected communities is vital. The food rations will greatly help in this stressful time to feed themselves and their families in this time of little or no income. The hygiene and sanitation kits and basic training on how to use them will ensure that they will be able to use these basic personal protective equipment like masks and gloves when they feel obligated to continue to work to collect recyclables. The sanitizing items will ensure that they are able to keep their hands and feet clean to prevent the spread of the virus after coming into contact with fomites, i.e, infected surfaces. These surfaces can include items which they regularly collect like plastic, cardboard, and metal, as well as the items they have a high chance of touching like improperly disposed of used masks, tissues, wipes, and medical waste.

Support Waste Workers During The COVID-19 Lockdown

On the fateful morning of the 20th of August, 2022, a cloudburst impacted Timlimansingh, Sarkhet, Thewa, Maldevta villages of Dehradun, Uttarakhand. (Short spells of extremely heavy rainfall in a small geographical area are known as cloudbursts)The after-effects of the cloudburst has led to a severe fallout among locals who are in an utter state of shock and despair. Many people are feared to be dead and their houses completely destroyed by the debris of the Song River. These families are natives of the affected villages and are dependent on farming or on their small food stalls for their livelihood.The Government machinery has sprung into full rescue operations. The homeless have taken shelter in government school buildings. In times of such a big catastrophe, we feel that the basic nutritional needs of those affected should be met. 
 The state authorities are already working on a war footing to re-establish normalcy through rescue operations and emergency medical services.We want to support the affected families by providing them with dry ration kits. It would go a long way in sustaining their survivability at this point. We plan to provide dry ration kits costing INR.1,000/- per kit containing the following: Wheat Flour - 10 Kg, Chana Daal - 1 Kg, Rice - 3 Kg, Salt - 1 Kg, Turmeric - 100 g, Chili Powder - 100 g, Mustard Oil - 1 L, Mix Daal - 1 Kg, Tea - 250 g, Malka Daal - 1 Kg, Soap - 1 Pc, Sugar - 1 KgWe, therefore, make an earnest appeal on behalf of all the affected and helpless families to make a contribution towards this campaign. We plan to support the region with 100 food relief kits immediately. Waste Warriors Society will take responsibility for transportation and distribution of these food relief kits. 
 Founded in the year 2012, WWS is an NGO and registered society working in the field of SWM primarily in the Indian Himalayan region of the state of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. Our relief campaign is intended to provide immediate relief to the affected region.We believe that it is times like these when the tenacity of trustworthy relationships with our people is tested. There could not be a better way than extending our helping hand to people who are going through turbulent times.

Support cloudburst affected families in Dehradun, Uttarakhand

With the whole country struggling through the second wave of COVID-19 and with continued disruption of livelihood due to imposed lockdowns, Waste Warriors Society is committed to stand by our sanitation workers and BPL families in our project areas in this time of grave crisis. A major part of livelihood for these workers and their families are daily wages and the sale of recyclables, which is not only a high risk job but to a huge extent has completely come to a standstill. These workers do not have the choice of staying back home and hence are exposed to maximum risk of getting contaminated and also further spreading the virus without proper protective and sanitation materials. 
 Now more than ever, these frontline workers need the support of not only food but also basic medical supplies. We are reaching out to more and more people to raise funds so that our team can provide daily necessities to our Safaai Saathis and BPL families across Dehradun, Dharamshala, Corbett and Rishikesh. Because of our relief efforts last year and our our work with sanitation workers over the past 2 years, we are in touch with several waste worker communities This includes, most importantly, dry food rations, pulse oximeters, thermometers, multivitamin supplements, masks, sanitizers and soaps. We have consulted with doctors on the medical supplies in our kits and have partnered with local authorities to carry on our relief work maintaining all the COVID norms. 
 With little or no income, the dry food rations will help our workers and their families to maintain a decent level of nutrition to maintain a healthier life, till the situation reaches some normalcy. There is always a high chance of these workers getting exposed to the virus while collecting waste which might be infected due to improper disposal of masks, tissues and medical wastes from various establishments. The medical kits that will be provided will help them check on their health on a regular basis if they need to carry on their work handling waste.

Support Sanitation Workers & BPL Families in Second Wave of COVID-19

The state of Uttarakhand has been grappling with a garbage crisis caused by steadily increasing amounts of improperly managed municipal solid waste in the region's fragile topography and sensitive ecosystem. Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR), Uttarakhand’s world-renowned wildlife reserve and tourism destination, is now under severe threat from indiscriminate waste dumping and burning. Booming numbers of tourists each year have created new streams of waste previously nonexistent, especially in less accessible forested areas. Without a proper means of disposal, solid waste will remain scattered here for decades. Litter and dump sites pollute land, water, and air and threaten the lives of animals, both domestic and wild, who mistakenly consume them. From 10 hotels spread out in 5 villages around CTR in 2000, the tourism industry grew to over 250 hotels by 2015. From zero waste in farm or forest land, discarded plastic is visible along the periphery of CTR, as no systems for solid or liquid waste management were initiated by authorities. With no historical precedence for such an issue, local communities have no experience in managing such waste, as in the past, whatever dry waste was produced was burnt and wet waste fed to the domestic animals or buried for compost. 
 Waste Warriors Corbett currently targets 37 villages on the eastern periphery of Corbett Tiger Reserve by (1) Developing decentralized solid waste management systems through trained women self-help groups and waste workers for door-to-door waste collection, segregation, and upcycled handicrafts (2) Raising awareness amongst school children and adults through workshops and by developing simple learning materials for segregation and composting (3) Organizing volunteer-driven clean-ups in heavily littered forested areas (4) Initiating public space transformations through dustbin installations, anti-littering signboards, and murals(5) Advocating for sustainable solid waste management policies by partnering with local government authorities such as the forest department and the pollution control board. 
 Over 5 years spread across 100 kilometers in the Corbett landscape, Waste Warriors Corbett has positively impacted the living standards of rural Corbett communities, increased livelihood opportunities, raised public awareness, and diverted tons of recyclables from open dumping sites. Our waste collection initiatives from 48 locations, including 37 villages that have 2900 households and shops, have reached over 374 tons. We have conducted hundreds of children’s day activities reaching nearly 9000 children in 76 schools, of which 67 schools have proper SWM systems, with dry waste being collected from 43 schools by our trained workers. We have set up 44 signboards, 8 waste collection centers, and 185 composting enclosures, and transformed 9 spaces. We have organized 17 awareness workshops attended by 248 adults, as well as 17 meetings/training for our 3 women self-help groups with 16 members, who now collect from 12 villages with 358 users contributing user fees. Our efforts have reduced waste burning and dumping in forest lands, and streams, and have also boosted dustbins usage and waste segregation by adults and children in the villages and schools we have engaged with. There is certainly a lot of work to do and our dedicated team is ready for it.