Vision Builders’ Board President and Co-Founder Katie Kirkpatrick just recently returned from India, where she visited Dr. Ashish, Puja, and the children at Kutumb. Katie met with the Kutumb staff to review the project’s accomplishments in 2011, and to discuss needs and goals for 2012.                              

Regarding the Kutumb shelter located in the Varanasi slum, Katie reports, “Everyone at Kutumb is doing splendidly. The children are all so happy and healthy and well-mannered – such a contrast to what is going on right outside their door.”

Katie notes that there are still so many children in need, “…9 year olds are smoking crack and glare at you with contempt.  There are 5 new children at Kutumb. One 5 year old girl showed up in the middle of the night when police arrested her criminal/prostitute/addict mom and left her alone.  Her name is Guriya and she is a little ray of sunshine who loves to dance.”

There is clearly so much need for the services provided by Kutumb.  The Kutumb project expansion is still in progress as we continue to help raise the needed funds. This trip included a visit to the land which Dr. Ashish has purchased for the new Kutumb Village.  Says Katie, “It is a perfect spot and will make a beautiful home for the children.  It is in the midst of a very poor village and Ashish has started a free clinic there in a previously existing building.”

One hundred or more people show up every Sunday to see Dr. Ashish, many of them elderly widows who walk for miles to get there. This 80 year old woman (pictured left) had a terrible middle ear infection and had been in pain for a month.  Katie explains that the situation for widows in India is truly awful: “Often they are homeless because their children won’t take them in and if they live with their children, they are only given food if the rest of that family has eaten and there is food left over.”

The next Vision Builders board meeting will include a review of 2012 fundraising priorities and goals for Kutumb.  We wish you all a very happy new year and we thank you for all the wonderful support you give to Vision Builders.