BOMBAY TEEN CHALLENGE

It's been an interesting start to the week with great ups and downs.

On sunday I took the train to Lower Parel Station for BlueFROG and walked through the veg, flower, chicken and smelly fish market with cats licking their lips. From a lovely sunny day into a fridge! BlueFROG is heavily air conditioned which is quite a shock now that I have aclimatised to the lovely Indian temperature. On Sundays BlueFROG run an afternoon brunch, something that is very popular with Mumbaikers. Everyone chills out after the stresses of the week in the city and enjoys amazing food and drink while listening to a guitar based trio playing Elvis covers!

Unfortunately, MiniFROG was not quite as successful as the brunch this week. Only two children were in the building (aged 1 and 4). Having spent time planning a lovely session, I was hoping that the kids would make a wee guitar, play some music with me and then maybe even perform on the club stage. However, the 4 year old just fancied doing some drawing and the 1 year old really wasn't up to being an expert instrument maker! I'm going to look into some advertising of the session and address its content in an attempt to attract some more children this week.

Monday was a fantastic day. I was invited by my landlady, Sheila Kripalani, treasurer of Bombay Teen Challenge, to visit their rehabilitation from prostitution centre and home for girls and women north of Badlapur: K.K. Devaraj founded Bombay Teen Challenge and under its auspices provides services such as shelters for children of women used in prostitution and street children, a home for AIDS orphans, homes for daughters of prostituted women, feeding programs, medical care, HIV/AIDS clinic, rescue for drug addicted “street boys”, and homes for women who have been rescued from a life of enslavement to prostitution in the brothels. At Ashagram (translated, the Village of Hope), the women have an opportunity to start new lives in a protected environment of love, and receive education and job training in the hope that they can become productive members of society. Those that cannot move on because of psychological or physical trauma have a permanent home at Ashagram.

I took the train to Badlapur, about an hour's journey North of Mumbai accompanied by one of the admin workers, Ahmeena, from the Bombay office. We were met at the station and had a half hour drive through rolling countryside with dark earth, scrub, trees and cows on the road at every corner!

We arrived at a beautiful oasis of calm = Ashagram. Girls were being schooled in classrooms below their living quarters and everyone was smiling and very welcoming. We were lucky enough to be shown around the Vocational Training Centre where the women make leather, cloth goods and jewellery for export orders to the US. The quality of the products they make is incredibly high and they produce some really beautiful things.

I am very pleased to say that I have been invited back to provide a couple of days of music workshops for the school age girls (they don't usually get to do music, but the boys do - and so many of them were really excited at the prospect of music and dance). I'll be putting forward a plan to the manager of the centre, Rinsey, in the next few days and hopefully returning in February for the work - I can't wait!