When charity is an antidote to pain
By Reeta Sharma

THE year was 1988. A happy family of four, Dr M. L. Sharma of the Department of Botany, Panjab University, his wife, Sudha Sharma, an Income Tax Commissioner and their two pretty daughters, Puja and Piya, were on a visiting spree on Divali night. They went from one friend’s house to another, exchanging good wishes. Certainly this happy family had the blessings of Goddess Lakshmi. But that night, perhaps, the goddess slept for a moment and missed a few rash drivers who crashed into the car carrying the family. The younger daughter, Piya, died on the spot, while the parents were seriously injured. The older daughter, Puja, then merely 12, was shell-shocked. Groping in the dark, she desperately yearned for her parent’s secure arms around her. But they were lying in a pool of blood. It took one year’s admission in the PGI and dozens of operations for the couple to return to their normal lives. But even then the family could not recover from their permanent loss — the absence of little Piya from their lives.

The older sister, Puja, felt lonely and lost and was finding it hard to reconcile herself to her sibling’s untimely death. It was at this juncture that a well-wisher suggested to her that she could form a trust in the name of her sister and work for the downtrodden. She readily took to the idea. And on December 21, 1989, she founded the Piya Sharma Charitable Trust. Puja began working as a social worker and alongside pursued her studies. She did graduation in sociology (hons) and psychology and finally postgraduation in business management. By 1997, her work was in full swing. Besides Panchkula, she covered two urban slums, namely Rajiv-Indira Colony and Bir Ghaggar-Haripur.

What made this beautiful young lady, blessed with luxuries, take up work in the slums? "I was shocked to see the poverty in these areas. The living conditions were totally sub-human. Children ran around in torn clothes. Almost all the mothers and children had lice in their hair. The women were ignorant about basic issues like hygiene, health and education. We decided to educate them on them through the trust. We made dozens of visits to their colonies and established a rapport with men, women, children and their elected representatives. Eventually, we succeeded in starting two non-formal schools in these areas. We provided the children with slates, books and exercise books, and gave them eatables to motivate them to regulate their lives and get some basic education".

Puja started these schools in 1997 and today you find all children from 5 years upwards enthusiastically attending their classes. Besides formal schooling, the students are imparted knowledge on many other aspects of life at these centres of learning.

The Piya Sharma Charitable Trust (PSCT) has gradually expanded its area of work. Besides setting up schools, it has taken up a project called the Promotion of Small Family Norms. The members of the trust include renowned and dedicated personalities like Dr I. C. Pathak, former Director of the PGI, Chandigarh; Dr M. L. Sharma, educationist; Dr Y. N. Mehra, a former Professor and Head of the Department of ENT, PGI; Dr Mangla Dogra, gynaecologist; Navjeevan Khosla, a retired bureaucrat; and Suman Passi, a social worker. I have personally experienced that making the slum-dwellers aware about hygiene, literacy and family-related issues is an up-hill task. They are desperately driven by their basic needs of roti, kapda and makaan. Hence any effort to make them aware about these issues requires immense dedication and patience. How did a young girl manage to achieve this? "We repeatedly collected women and made them talk to lady doctors: The purpose was to make them realise that frequent childbirth not only destroys their health but also lays a heavy burden on their meagre resources. We called these informers jagriti mandalis. We also organised meetings to sensitise men and young boys on this issue. The PSCT also ensured that social workers, auxiliary nurses-cum-midwives (ANMs) visited these women on a daily basis. Eventually, we succeeded in motivating ‘eligible couples’ to agree to sterilisation. Others agreed to adopt birth-control methods". The PCST organises regular medical camps for women and children. The voluntary services of eminent doctors are used. Immunisation camps for children and pregnant women are also a regular feature. Free medical camps are held every two months wherein besides examination, free medicines are also distributed.

Purely because of its services rendered to the needy, the PSCT has been accorded the status of a "Mother NGO" by the SWACH Foundation. In November, 1997, Puja S. Passi also set up a sewing centre with the objective of training women from the weaker sections in stitching and embroidery. In the first batch, 55 women were trained, and since then the number has kept increasing. Those who took training are now economically independent. Puja, who was appropriately made the Project Director of the trust, says her personal tragedy has helped her grow beyond existence for the self. How does she view in retrospect the coming up of the trust in the memory of her sister? "I am thankful that it was floated. Service to the poor, the helpless has given a purpose to my life. It has helped me fill the vacuum in my life that came unexpectedly. The incident had shattered us but when you view stark poverty, misery and helplessness of the people, you feel one with them in their grief."

The trust has also taken up the following activities: providing nutritious food products and nutritional supplements to expectant mothers and children, funding school education of 15 children and giving free books to children of the weaker sections of society, giving scholarship every year in the name of Piya Sharma to the best student of the city, participating actively with the PHC staff in Pulse Polio Campaigns and IEC programmes and sensitisation campaigns for AIDS awareness.