Sheela Bal Bhavan was started in Jaipur, India, a city of 1.5 million people approximately 250 kilometers southwest of Delhi, Sheela Bal Bhavan (SBB) was built to help destitute children escape the malnutrition and degradation that is so prevalent in overpopulated cities around the globe. Can Serve Foundation was established in 1992 by a group of Montreal educators from Concordia University and St. George’s School of Montreal with a $250,000 donation provided by Joti and Sheela Bhatnagar.
This Foundation (CSF) supports Sheela Bal Bhavan, which today houses over twenty young girls. The concept and the leadership for this organization came from Sheila and Joti Bhatnagar, educators at Concordia and pre-university special needs children.
Originally, it was envisaged that each child would have a sponsor. Slowly but surely, we have succeeded in that aim and we are in the process of finding a second sponsor for each of the children. With the additional contributions, we are creating a fund that will be available to respond to special needs of the children as they arise. Many of the sponsors, apart from making financial contribution, also take personal interest in the lives of their foster child. They exchange letters, e-mails, photographs, and stories. Some foster parents visit their children occasionally. This makes a huge difference in the lives of the children at Sheela Bal Bhavan and the children are always pleased to have this contact. With the coming into existence of Can Serve Foundation in Canada and UK Care in England, both of which were mandated to exclusively fund Sheela Bal Bhavan, our finances are more stable.
An important chapter in the history of development of Sheela Bal Bhavan opened up when the first voluntary worker arrived in 1993. Since that time, we have had a number of voluntary workers from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. Most of them are in their “gap year” i.e. they have finished school and are taking a year off before entering university. Their number ranges from a minimum of two to a maximum of six in any given year. Voluntary workers bring with them enthusiasm, dedication and a very strong desire to serve children. Generally, they provide English conversation and fellowship with the girls. Most of our girls, thanks to the voluntary workers, can now speak some English and a few of them are fluent in English conversation. Apart from English conversation, voluntary workers impart western cultural values as an integral part of their contribution. Since the goal of Sheela Bal Bhavan is to develop a mixture of both Eastern and Western values (with the objective of extracting the best from both cultures), this contribution of voluntary workers has been invaluable. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Christmas, Easter, and Halloween are celebrated as much as Holi and Diwali at Sheela Bal Bhavan.
Gradually, Sheela Bal Bhavan is developing, according to the ideals it was intended to achieve. The values of honesty, integrity, truthfulness, and straight forwardness are slowly emerging in our girls. Our focus has been in two fronts. First, we are attempting to educate these girls. We see education as the only means through which they are going to escape the never-ending cycle of poverty, exploitation, and hopelessness. On the personal level, we are trying to do everything to “empower” them. Empowerment in our opinion is only going to come through both economic and emotional security. Education is the very likely vehicle for economic security while values of integrity, self-respect and self-confidence, dignity, respect for others, and straightforwardness will provide emotional security. It is a tall order especially with so many girls to care for, counsel and love, all of whom come with very difficult family histories. However, as the Chinese saying goes “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”. Two of our girls have established their own families but often return with their husbands and children to see their stepsisters, original family, and home.
