Dear Friends,

India celebrated our 65 independence day last week with good progress as a nation for this population and so much to take care in the years ahead.  Also the whole world celebrated the 2012 Olympics early this month and many of us were amazed by the performance of those athletes with strong determination to win their medal. 

But here is a little 13 year old girl climbing 50 feet tall coconut trees with an ambition to become doctor and gets paid (Rs 15 per tree) from her neighbors to buy books and other stationeries for her school.

WeReachOut admin Mr. Srini found this student from an article in the Deccan Herald newspaper early this month and reached out to her to see if we can be helpful to prevent her from climbing trees without any safety measurements at this young age. Please check the article attached in this email to know more about this 8-grade student.  You can also find her detail on our website at http://www.wereachout.org/Admin/StudentViewForm.aspx?sid=398  

We understood from our communication that it’s common for kids in this area climbing trees for income.  Some of the questions we may feel when we read this article.

1.       Is it the ignorance of parents without realizing the risk or the hidden reality of struggles within some of these families in India?

2.       Are these neighbors taking advantage of these vulnerable kids to save some money or under the impression of helping these kids by offering this kind of part time job without realizing the risk?

3.       Are they aware of child labor laws in India or the corrupted Govt. officials are simply allowing this kind of abuse to continue?

But one thing is sure, this girl wanted to share some of the burden and responsibility at her home with such a determination at this young age.  How do we help her to spend more time on study to reach her goal of becoming a doctor and be an ambassador to prevent this kind of abuse in future?

We cannot expect the Rs 2500 sponsorship for this 8th grade from WeReachOut is going to stop her from climbing trees as her part-time job. But at least she has the option to say “NO” for climbing 166 trees with this sponsorship for this year if she wanted.

Every student listed on our Student-In-Need page at http://www.wereachout.org/StudentsInNeed.aspx has some unique situation behind their request for sponsorship. 

Please check these students on our website if you would like to sponsor any students, also help us by sharing the message with your friends to find new sponsorship or identify this kind of well deserving students from remote places in India.

We will keep you posted with our updates from WeReachOut India meeting held on 29th July 2012 with pictures and more details sometime next week.

Thank you so much for all your support for this organization to serve its purpose. Please visit www.wereachout.org  for more information or call us at (408) 368 7568 for any questions or clarifications.

Special thanks to Srini for reaching out to this student to know more about the reality and all your hard work towards our sponsorship distribution process.    

Thank you,

On Behalf of WeReachOut Team

Richard Solomon

(408) 368 7568

www.wereachout.org