December '19 Update
2019 was a difficult year. Here’s what has happened so far.
The projects
Health camp: We have finally decided on a date for the health and dental camp. It will take place on February 2, 2020. We will also be giving checkups to students at a fourth school called Anganwadi. A week after this health camp, we will be organising a separate preventative dental health camp for the first-graders from all the schools, providing them with preventative care.
Personal hygiene campaign: There have been a lot of issues sorting out the shipping of the undergarments and towels from Bangkok to Mumbai. After some lengthy discussion, we have decided to bring them over with us when we visit Bangkok in June 2020. Unfortunately, this means we will have to postpone the personal hygiene campaign to July of 2020.
Malnutrition campaign: Over the summer, we did a test run of giving students at Temki Paada milk every school day. There were, however, issues with finding a milk supplier in Mahim who was willing to travel to the school and deliver the milk. We also don’t want to take any risks with the milk not being boiled enough and causing health problems in the children. We are thinking of providing Temki Paada with fruits instead. This is still in the planning stages.
On a more personal level, 2019 had been a difficult year for the family. Co-founder Saniya More now attends Columbia University for her post-graduate studies and I’m at Edinburgh for my undergraduate studies. Over the summer, the family shifted permanently from Thailand to India which brought about many unanticipated consequences. Furthermore, now that Mahim Aboli Foundation is a registered website, there are a lot of legal issues that we need to sort out. It may not seem as though we are doing a lot on the surface but there is a lot going on behind the scenes.