Perthshire woman raise £25,000 for Indian housing project

Mar 26 2010 Perthshire Advertiser Friday

A DYNAMIC group of Perthshire women have raised almost £25,000 to build a new home for destitute Indian girls on the outskirts of a remote Himalayan village.

Now the team is focusing on generating £15,000 for phase two – building a skills centre to teach girls carpet weaving and sewing.

The project was launched late last year by Rynd single mum and businesswoman, Mel Morris (50), who visited a grim ashram housing the outcast girls near the village of Kapkote with her teenage son Josh.

The girls are victims of the rigid Indian caste system, condemned to a life of poverty by parents who cast their daughters out as they are too poor to care for them.

In October last year, the W2 Training director, who has twice beaten breast cancer, decided she wanted to do “something significant” and teed-up a field trip to India with a team from Hampshire-based charity, the Lotus Flower Trust.

Landing in Delhi, the group travelled to the Himalayan foothills in jeeps, trekking the final five miles to an NGO (non-governmental organization) office and ashram – communal house – where no westerners had ever been before.

What they found there broke Ms Morris’s heart.

“There were 79 girls there, all aged between three and 17, living in absolutely shocking conditions,” she said.

“They were sleeping on a bare concrete floor, sharing grubby blankets, with no heating. They’d get up at 5am as it was so freezing and wash in cold water outside.

“It was so sad; they had no privacy, no dignity, nothing, not even the basic fundamentals of life, whereas kids over here have bedrooms full of iPods and hair straighteners.”

Before leaving the ashram, the western visitors bought the girls 60 mattresses, pillows and bed linen for less than £1,000.

Back home, Ms Morris launched a project to raise £25,000 for building a dormitory home on NGO-gifted land near Kapkote.

She got the ball rolling by enclosing an account of her ashram experience and fundraising appeal in Christmas cards to friends and family.

Subsequently, with the help of core Perthshire team, Marion Duffy, Marion Foster, Jane Gibson, Vicky Kelly and Fiona Adams, a fundraisers were organised and by late last week, £23,000 was in the kitty.

With the goal of building the Akaash Ganga home – which translates as ‘river of stars’ – before winter 2010 now in the net, the group is now planning more initiatives, including three ceilidhs, to raise £15,000 for a skills centre.

“The idea is that the girls will be able to learn carpet weaving and sewing skills so that each girl leaves the ashram with their own sewing machine and skills set so they don’t have to live in poverty any more,” she said.

For details about forthcoming fundraising events, contact Mel Morris on 01738 783558. Donations can be made online at www.justgiving.com/Akaash-Ganga-Kapkot.