New Year, Same Pressing & Deadly reality

As 2022 draws to a close, we check in with our larger extended kaumi family in Punjab and notice the trends have not changed, and the support you all provide through the Adopt-A-Family project is as relevant, even life-saving, as ever!

Last month, our partners, Baba Nanak Education Society, noted 3 new suicides:

 Pargat leaves behind a widow and three children. Davinder and Jagal were also each married, and each had two children. Pargat and Davinder were both agricultural labourers and Jagpal was a farmer. All three men were heavily in debt.

Who is a typical rural suicide victim? What do their lives look like?

He had little education and few assets.
He inherited a few acres of land but for most years cost of production exceeded profit on harvest.
He bought a tractor or deepened his well...costly investments that didn't increase profitability.
To make ends meet, he sold off land little by little.
Once the land was gone, his only option was to seek work as a labourer.
His debts remained and creditors hounded him.
Earnings from daily wages were not enough to feed the family....
Finally, he took  his own life in abject desparation

What does a suicide widow look like?
She has children; often they are very young.
In-laws and her own family are surviving on bare minimum; they can't help her.
She has little education but often has skills, though unmet with local markets.
She's ready to work but opportunities in her village are limited.

Could she work as a domestic servant in a town? Possibly if: 
... she has relatives who can serve as a base in the beginning;
...if she earns enough to rent a jhuggi and feed her kids;
...if she is smart enough, strong enough, to cope with the insecurities of living on her own.

Realistically, what can be done to help her?

BNES has struggled with this question for a long time.

Their answer is: provide monthly assistance to the family sufficient to ensure that they don't go hungry ON THE CONDITION THAT all the children of the family remain in school and complete 12th grade. If a child wants to study further and has ability, we try to arrange a scholarship. SAANJH funds college scholarships as well.

Every child who gets an education, gets employment and supports their family is a beacon of light.

Thanks to EACH of you for supporting their light, their self-realization, their self-empowerment. 

May the Guru keep smiling on EACH one of you now, in 2023, and forever.

Guru Rakhaa!