"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

“They insert a candle in the vagina, fingers are inserted (in the vagina) and tortured, and if children don’t relent even then, they put chilli powder so that children will say “yes” because of the burning of the skin… There are teeth marks on their bodies, and their vaginal parts are burnt. When children stay in these conditions, it is painful even to hear,” says Lalitha SA of Society for Participatory Integrated Development (SPID), in course of talking about many heart-rending stories of trafficked children in red-light areas.In over three decades, the SPID led by Lalitha, has saved over 3000 children from the red-light areas, many from clutches of sex trafficking.Sadly, many more children need to be rescued and in need of a loving home. But Lalitha needs our support to carry on the mission, to move out of her small facility so that she can rescue more children, house them in a permanent location and give them all the love they deserve. Your support can help her give these children the care and upbringing they need. 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).A movement to protect vulnerable childrenAs a social worker, Lalitha has worked for decades in GB Road, the red-light area of Delhi and helped many women escape the clutches of being forced into sex. But it was the exploitation of children, many of them hardly ten or twelve or even less. The SPID has focused on rescuing such children and giving them a new life.Lalitha plays a vital role in the survival and safety of vulnerable children in the red light areas. As SPID is almost entirely dependent on donations from the public, we can support and strengthen SPID’s mission to save children. Donate generously.Donation to SPID’s fundraiser on Give.do“I have limited funds and very limited space, and if I had the funds, I would be able to rescue many more children and provide them with more comfort. With folded hands, I plead with you that you help us with funds in large numbers and support us in providing us children with a decent life. Become a part of the mission,” pleads LalithaDonate to this fundraiser by Give, India’s largest and most trusted online donation platform, to help Lalitha give hundreds of children rescued from brothels a life away from violence and abuse.NGO's 80G number: AADAS3217RF20212NGO's 12A number: AADAS3217RE20214

Help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

“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

This is a sample description for Community & Rural Development. For the purpose of testing I will use the word Community & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural DevelopmentCommunity & Rural Development.

Community & Rural Development

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Women Empowerment

This is a sample description for Livelihood. For the purpose of testing I will use the word LivelihoodLivelihoodLivelihoodLivelihood.

Livelihood

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Human Rights

Aajeevika Bureau (AB) is a non-profit organization working to enhance the dignity and well-being of migrant worker communities in the informal economy. It primarily works across the western Indian migration corridor of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra but has networks across India. It deploys a range of interventions to provide comprehensive support to workers both at the source and destination areas of migration. Beyond the grassroots, AB also undertakes evidence-based advocacy to address relevant policy gaps at the national and state level.

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Divya Varma

AAJEEVIKA BUREAU TRUST

This nonprofit is registered under Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), 2010. This means it can accept donations from foreign nationals.

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Seasonal migration for work is a pervasive reality in rural India. An overwhelming 140 million people or more are estimated to migrate from rural areas to urban labor markets, industries and farms. Migrants form the largest part of India's vast unorganized work sector. Their entry into the labour markets is marked with several endemic disadvantages. Devoid of critical skills, information and bargaining power, migrant workers often get caught in ad-hoc, exploitative and unsafe working and living conditions. Lack of identity and legal protection accentuates this problem. The hardships of migrant workers are especially magnified when state boundaries are crossed and the distance between the "source" and "destination" increases. For decades, migrant workers have been excluded from social security policy and wage protection. They are also easy victims of identity politics and parochialism, blamed for taking local jobs. They are not able to access entitlements like PDS at destination sites, because of the lack of inbuilt portability of these mechanisms. Their work and contribution to both the village and the city is devalued by both the state and society, making them vulnerable to big shocks like demonetization, the COVID-19 pandemic and its accompanying destruction of livelihood. 
 Aajeevika Bureau (AB) combines direct service delivery, advocacy, research and technical support in advancement of its work on issues of migrant workers. Through a network of field based Shramik Sahayata evam Sandarbh Kendras (Workers Support and Resource Centers), AB provides a range of services to migrants and their households. These services include registration and photo ID, skill training and placement, legal aid, collectivization, social security, financial services, health care and empowering families. AB runs field centers both at source (South Rajasthan) and at major destinations of migration (in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra). AB has undertaken a wide range of field based research into aspects of seasonal migration, labour and employment. Knowledge building adds to perspectives on this under-researched area and also helps the Bureau design new services and interventions for migrant groups. There are enormous gaps in policy for migrant workers at the state and national level and AB’s work helps define new agendas, priorities and programs that can be adopted by government and industry for the vast number of migrant workers. A special unit within AB also provides technical support and capacity building to a large number of organizations across India. 
 Aajeevika Bureau's vision is to become a leading agency working to ensure secure and dignified lives of communities dependent on migration and labour. Its mission is to provide lasting solutions to economic and socio-legal problems of migrant workers - directly as well as through partners - by creating replicable models offering services and security both at source and destination.Through relief interventions and rebuilding of livelihoods, our interventions aim to attain short, medium and long term impact. To begin with relief efforts shall aim to ensure that migrants and their families are protected from starvation, are able to access state welfare benefits and cash transfers in a dignified manner. Further in the medium to long term, our interventions seek to improve access to dignified livelihoods, affordable health care services, safeguard vulnerable families from slipping into poverty, assist them in obtaining decent work at a fair wage and improving their overall financial health and well-being.

Aajeevika Bureau - Ensure security and dignity to migrant worker communities

Since the <a href="https://scroll.in/latest/863137/mumbai-kamala-mills-fire-14-killed-three-restaurant-owners-charged" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Kamala Mills fire</a> in Mumbai on December 27, 2017 and resulting deaths, there was tremendous media coverage and lobbying to ensure better fire safety standards at restaurants and commercial places.   Another incident happened around the same time which did not get the same coverage or attention.   On the morning of 18th December 2017, a day celebrated as migrant’s day internationally, the Aajeevika team was shaken with the news of 12 workers being charred to death in a farsan (snacks) factory not very far from Aajeevika's Mumbai office at Khairane Road. Our Twitter thread <a href="https://twitter.com/AajeevikaBureau/status/1501570023432892427?s=20&amp;t=03eEMW8sCPuc2wV8CeCCpQ" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>. The fire safety standards continue to be flouted as a lot of micro-enterprises in this area of Andheri East (Mumbai). Many of these enterprises are not even registered under the Shops and Establishments Act, 2017.   Industrial fires leading to deaths of poor migrants and the destruction of small businesses are a regular reality. See <a href="https://www.epw.in/journal/2020/14/commentary/fighting-fires-migrant-workers-mumbai.html" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this article</a>. Aajeevika Bureau has had many successful interventions on fire safety in the past. Why should you care?   This area of Mumbai consists of micro-enterprises specialized in making the most critical items from a typical middle-class home in India. The workers work for more than 12 hours to manufacture the products we use on a daily basis. From small components that remain the basis of a fridge or <a href="https://twitter.com/AajeevikaBureau/status/1472236555540447238?s=20&amp;t=03eEMW8sCPuc2wV8CeCCpQ " rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">a mixer</a> to dyes of plastic products that make water bottles, chairs. During the pandemic, they have been one of the key suppliers of PPE kits, sanitizer bottles, and stands across the country! COVID-19 and the many lockdowns endangered the livelihoods of not only such factories but also of migrants who travel long distances to keep this manufacturing up and running. Help them get them back on their feet with some preventative and safety measures in place! 
 Based on our mapping in Mumbai, the types of industries that exist in the Andheri (East) area: garment and metal manufacturing, scrap recycling units, among others. Many of these units regularly face fire hazards as they are vulnerable to short circuits and lack of fire safety equipment. Under our programme, “Humara Gala, Surakshit Gala” we have conducted several fire safety trainings that are appreciated by informal business owners with enthusiastic participation from migrant workers.  We want to revive this initiative again at our Mumbai field office in Khairani Road, Andheri East.  The final outcome of this exercise is that we want to deliver fire safety trainings and donate safety equipment to 56 compounds in Andheri East industrial area, which covers at least 8000 units.   
 The workforce from the micro-enterprises is single male migrants, parts of Bihar and Eastern UP. Aajeevika's vision is to support migrants who are disenfranchised in big cities and this initiative of fire safety will ensure that not only migrant workers but also the livelihoods of informal businesses are protected.

Aajeevika Bureau - Ensure security and dignity to migrant worker communities

Fire safety for micro enterprises in Mumbai

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

Help Lalitha give kids rescued from abuse in red-light areas a safe and loving home. Donate now.

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

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