An orphanage with a difference ………Joeanna Rebello Fernandes
At Sanjivani,a self-contained oasis in Virar East, inmates grow their own food, harvest their own water and are educated at home
At Sanjivani,a self-contained oasis in Virar East, inmates grow their own food, harvest their own water and are educated at home
One tends to think of orphanages in grays: a colour suggestive of either Dickensian poverty or missionary misery.There is,however,one that looks nothing like the penitentiaries we know.
Islanded from the smokestacks of the city,Sanjivani is an orphanage for girls located in the rustic outback of Virar East,an idyll anchored among the hills.If we know public juvenile centres to be highwalled Alcatraz encampments,this one is a surprise.Designed by architect Brinda Somaya,its a low red complex of rooms,verandahs and broad corridors,fronted by a basketball court on one side and a garden on the other.On the wall is a motto that was born of the founders founding goal: Live,Love,Learn.
When Victor and Rajeshri Bansiwar imagined a home for girls,it was to be in the near likeness of an everyday home inhabited by an everyday familya place where children grew up with security,love and nourishment.It was to be a place where they would attend an appropriate school in the vicinity and return to the hearth to a better-than-ordinary life.But when the hunt for affordable land led the Bansiwars to the village of Kaner,which had no electricity,drainage,water supply or telephone lines,let alone a decent school close by,Sanjivani was forced to be almost completely self-reliant.Today,the orphanage is a self-contained oasis,baking its own bread,growing its own produce,harvesting its water and biowaste and conducting a competent educational programme in situ.
We used to conduct platform classes for ten years before Sanjivani, says Victor,counting ten crowded stations down Mumbais rail lines.He and his wife,Rajeshri,are alumni of the post-graduate Social Service course at Nirmala Niketan,and the two birthed the non-profit VOICE (Voluntary Organisation in Community Enterprise) in 1991.Their decade by the tracks,educating kids who worked or lived near the lines,led them to realise that it was the girls who needed sanctuary.At puberty they were inevitably sold,often into prostitution.Thats how Sanjivani came into being four years ago,and is now home to 45 girls aged between five and 18.
In addition to their formal education via the curriculum of the National Open School,the inmates of the orphanage are taught life skills,yoga,computers,martial arts and vocational training in tailoring,pottery,baking and screen printing.Their proximity to Nature,and the necessary recourse to recycling water and waste has made them young environmentalists who plant what they eat.We have girls brought here by their beggar mothers,by mothers who are sex workers and construction labourers,so in the strict sense theyre not really orphaned, says Rajeshri.But there are orphans,two of who lost their parents to the Gateway blasts of 2003.
It helps that the surrounding serenity offsets the violence of memory.It also helps Victor and Rajeshri brave the daily battle of nurturing wounded souls,answering questions to which they have no answers.Why did my mother do this to me questions a teenager who was rescued from sexual abuse at a bar at age seven.Its hard, Rajeshri acknowledges,dropping her brusque boilerplate.
The habilitation of girls can be difficult,with adolescence bringing its own rebellion.Children in remand homes have been known to run away,which is why most orphanages keep their wards literally behind bars.But no one has attempted to leave this place, Rajeshri says,with a hint of relief.I tell them Ill gladly drop them off to their destination,to just let us know they want to leave.
In one of the dorms,17-year-old Girisha Sethi from Kharghar is monitoring the five to seven-year-olds,who dont care for a noon nap.Girisha says her favourite activity at Sanjivani is basketball and her favourite subjects maths and English.An 18-yearold,Rupa Ramnath Singh,says she wants to complete her higher education through NOS and then become a social worker.Divya had a short stint at the Bhiwandi Remand Home.It was like prison, she says.The food was tasteless,and it was so packed,we wanted to run away.
While a zero runaway rate is always good,and attachment to a place is a fine commendation of it,for the girls over 18 who have to mandatorily leave the anchorage by government rule,no prospect could be more hazardous.Victor and Rajeshri are naturally worried.After all this time and education,we dont want them to go back on the streets, says Victor,who is mulling over VOICEs next movea working womens hostel.
Its hard to judge a place like this in a daya place thats trying to build life out of wreckage.Perhaps the notes in the suggestion box hold a clue.Most of them simply say Thank you.
* FAMILY TREE In addition to formal education,the girls are taught yoga,martial arts and pottery