http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?blogId=484 sphoorti n more Dommara Children Rehabilitation Initiative - Sphoorti The Issue - The Dommara community members practice prostitution as their traditional 'profession'. The dynamics of this trade pose grave danger to children who go through a lot of trauma and harassment, completely robbed of the pleasures and happiness of childhood. The Dommara girl-child is highly vulnerable to being forced to prostitution as soon as she reaches puberty. Boys graduate into traffickers/pimps or grow into irresponsible adults. Children belonging to any other category can make a living somehow, even in poverty, but the Dommara children do not have any go than selling sex. Supporting a Dommara child is very important to all of us as it would mean saving the child from falling into flesh-trade and arresting incidence of HIV/AIDS. At the same time, we can gift the child a happy childhood and a respectable future. The Intervention - As part of a network of various organizations (HARD, Vitharana, Reddy Charity, Manavata, Sphoorti et al), we have been trying to rehabilitate some of the innocent Dommara children, from the community settlement in Sivunur, Ramayampet. The intention is to transplant these children from the vicious environment they are condemned to, where their mothers or sisters have been commercial sex workers for years, to SPHOORTI which can assure them a safe and secure childhood. These kids would then be provided comprehensive care and support - a delightful and memorable childhood that most of us enjoyed as well as the kind of education and emotional support that our parents provided us. This intervention will help the Dommara children lead their lives with confidence and be responsible citizens of India. A lot of preliminary work was done by Human Action for Rural Development (HARD) and Vitharana and in the later stages, SPHOORTI joined their efforts. After facing initial resistance from the community members, HARD finally succeeded in convincing some members of the Dommara community to send their children away from their neighborhood. SPHOORTI is finally taking care of more than a dozen children from this community as on today. We will save more such children with your support. The IMPACT - With taking up support of these children from such a community and circumstances, SPHOORTI has added 2 new categories of children that are being covered - 1 ) children of sex workers 2) children from families ravaged by HIV/AIDS This initiative is highly significant for SPHOORTI as an organization and for all our stakeholders. The long term benefits to society are evident from statistics. Studies show that a sex worker transmits HIV to at least 600 people in a 10 year-span of selling sex. If we save such girls, we are saving not just them, we are protecting a great number of people [600 x (number of girls saved)] from HIV and a similar number of families from a lot of agony and ignominy. Given the gravity of this issue and the benefits in the long run, we request all of YOU to join us in this significant move. Let us work to make a REAL IMPACT on the lives of these children. This mission can lead us to a bigger opportunity to build more lives.  - Sphoorti Foundation www.sphoorti.org A Hyderabad NGO (Orphanage) sponsoring orphan and poor children. http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=3415&blogId=484 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:27:54 +0000 When was the last time you wrote someone a letter? Not an SMS (txt msg) nor an email but a REAL, hand-written with paper and pen, sent in a stamped envelope letter. Not long ago, for many of us, writing letters was the only means of communication over distances. But now, the addiction to instant communication has made us treat the art of writing someone a letter some kind of an ancient art-form. Moreover, the speed of SMS and emails is not fast enough for some of us. A bevy of abbreviations being invented these days leave people like me fazed. And whether we realize it or not, there is a great danger in the loss of the letter. Letters have been made redundant by electronic communication which lacks a physical presence unless it is printed out (which governments and environmentalists discourage these days). This means that emails of love (which would once have been love letters); conversations with siblings or pals about families and friends will never be available to historians to discover aspects of our lives today. We are slowly becoming more and more isolated and insular in our views. The internet has broken down communication barriers on a global scale, but it has also built new ones on a local level. If you think about the importance of letter writing throughout history, you will reckon that most of what we know about the beliefs, ideologies etc of many famous historical figures has been collected from their letters - personal and public correspondence. Letters are useful to historians because the character of famous people and their thought processes can often be revealed more clearly in informal communications (letters) than in official documents (biographies, textbooks etc). A letter is a personal thing, even more now because we receive so few of them. It is all about sharing, it implies reciprocity and creates a two-way relationship. Letters matter because they are personal in an increasingly disconnected world, and because they take time and effort to produce. In short, writing a letter is giving a gift of oneself. So, today, make a small gesture that will bring someone bit of happiness. Think of someone you care about, turn off your computer, and write them a letter. Who knows, you may soon be getting one in return :) http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2995&blogId=484 Tue, 29 Apr 2008 22:33:32 +0000   Help us get ENLIGHTENED - donate BOOKS ! Textbooks, notebooks, story books scrap books, drawing books, graphs and maps etc. Sphoorti Foundation http://www.sphoorti.org 919490120168 http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2992&blogId=484 Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:15:00 +0000 One of the biggest mistakes that many charities, especially orphanages and similar organizations do is adopting a scarcity thinking vis-a-vis abundance approach.             Most people behind charitable organizations view the Universe of Donors as fixed and imagine that they live in a world where resources are limited. There’s never enough time or money or people. Everyday is a struggle for for survival of some kind and a view of the future hardly exists. For those who believe in abundance, the size of the Universe of Donors is not fixed, it can grow further and without any upper bound. The goal, therefor is not to figure out how to claim your part and to hold onto it. The goal is to figure out how we can grow the Universe so that everyone can have a larger slice . These people live in a world where resources are abundant, where one can always find lot of support, the money and the people if ONLY one can think differently. They do not have to worry about for survival, sustenance etc. Their focus is on how to grow the pie to claim larger slices. So, does this kind of thinking matter ..., it surely does. Abundance-thinking organizations see an opportunity - be it miniscule or substantial, everywhere. While scarcity thinkers can only imagine and see barriers and problems, abundance thinkers see opportunities in challenges. Abundant thinking frees an organization from the notions of cynicism, insecurity and incremental approach towards mobilizing support. Such thinking helps in seeing possibilities of expanding the Donor pie continuously, leading to more support from different quarters. This has been one of the concepts that Sphoorti has been adopting from Day One and has helped us immensely. We have always held the view that the world is full of great souls waiting for an opportunity to do good and we know that the number of such people will only increase as we research and communicate. This is our 'Abundance Thinking'. Such thinking frees our mind of all kinds of insecurity and the opportunity to concentrate on our mission - shaping lives of underprivileged children. And fortunately, in our journey, we have been meeting some really great people who are ever willing to extend material and moral support.   How then do we perpetuate this Abundance Thinking. Seth Godin, one of my most beloved writers, suggests that one of the ways we can live in abundance in any situation is by always focusing first on what we can give. Not on what we can get out of life, but what can we give back to it? This again leads us to another core belief - the responsibility to GIVE to our friends in return to their wonderful support to SPHOORTI. What best we can give to our donors, sponsors and all our well-wishers. As an organization, it is our moral responsibility to be effective and efficient, transaprent and accountable to our friends. That is the least expectd anyways. But what further can we GIVE that makes us stand apart as an organization. So, ALL our kids GIVE is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, give a MEMORABLE experience each time our friends visit SPHOORTI and make them part of our FAMILY from the day ONE. And surely we want to GIVE them MORE love and MORE sweet memories in every visit. And with this approach,we hope to join forces with more altruistic folks in future to make a difference to more children in need Srivyal Vuyyuri www.sphoorti.org 9490120168 http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2991&blogId=484 Fri, 25 Apr 2008 23:17:34 +0000 Last week, a lady visited Sphoorti to find out if she could admit her children here in the coming months. Hers was a very moving story. Her husband physically harassed her for years and one fine day deserted her for good. She has three children, two sons and a daughter. The youngest son is mentally retarded and has been placed in Sri Vidhya Center for Special Children ( www.srividhya.org ). She wanted to admit the elder children here. After cross-checking with Sri Vidhya’s Director Mrs. Shanti Venkat, we agreed and assured the lady that the children can stay at Sphoorti starting May. Each time I encounter such people whose lives are full of grief and despair, I realize that it’s just a MATTER of LUCK that I am NOT an orphan , NOT a destitute , NOT illiterate , NOT a physically NOR a mentally challenged person. These PRIVILEGES are meant to be shared with our not-so-privileged brethren. And we hope SPHOORTI ( www.sphoorti.org) could be your platform to do so.   Srivyal Vuyyuri http://www.sphoorti.org  http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2985&blogId=484 Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:53:39 +0000 The affection with which people view their homeland is an almost universal phenomenon, but it reached a new level of meaning with the rise of the ‘nation state’ and the emphasis on patriotism. One of the best known poems celebrating this “state of mind” is the verse by Sir Walter Scott. The poem was written in 1805. I learnt this poem in in STD VI (1987), courtesy my then English teacher Mrs Deshpande. I recited the poem in STD VI, STD VII and STD VIII in the poem recitation competition and won a prize each time :). As I think back, I realize this poem has instilled a degree of patriotism in my psyche. “Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonored , and unsung.” Srivyal Vuyyuri http://www.sphoorti.org http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2984&blogId=484 Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:50:16 +0000 If you can read this post, it means that the registration process was successful and that you can start blogging http://blogs.fullhyderabad.com/showblog.php?op=ViewArticle&articleId=2983&blogId=484 Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:00:27 +0000