Guria India Blog

Guria filed a Writ Petition demanding justice for  the rights and lives of innocent minor girls who are taken by organized groups of criminals and sold into slavery,  and it was recently accepted by the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India! After the hearing on March 7, 2014, Guria's notice was issued to the Union Of India, the Ministry of Women and Child Development (Govt. of India) and 19 States of India. A big step towards progress for sure. Guria has also received some wonderful press attention about the success of the passing of this Public Interest Litigation! Visit out  Media and More  page for some of the articles published in India's leading newspapers! Some details about the issue for which the Writ Petition demanded justice: According to a report supported by the Department of Women and Child Development (Govt. of India), there are 3 million prostitutes in India. 40% of these prostitutes are minors, which translates to at least 1,200,000 minor sex...

  The LeapNow group who raised money for Guria has been hard at work out in Ghazipur district building a goat bank. Ajeet has in the past described goat banks as the “ATM” of the poor in India. The vulnerable communities can get goats in the name of loans without involving cash. The LeapNow group was also treated to a village cultural program performance that included local folk musicians and dancers.

Holi at the Varanasi Centre was a blast! We were lucky to welcome volunteers from LeapNow group and the Lawrenceville School from the United States, and the children had great fun attacking each other and the visitors with fistfuls of powdered pigments. By the end, all were unrecognizable shades of pink, green, blue and orange, and little clouds of colour still wafted through the air. The pictures below can only begin to reveal the absolute mayhem of the day!

Following a very generous donation by Deepika Goyal at Popcorn Furniture, the Varanasi NFE Center has been decked out in brand new furniture – little chairs and tables for the children to work at, small beds for afternoon naps, beautiful cupboards for them to store their possessions, and – best of all – toys of all kinds. The children are absolutely thrilled and will never tire of pretending to make kicharee in little wooden dinette-sets. We are incredibly grateful for the donation! Once again, thank you Deepikaji! Below are some pictures of the furniture now that it has been set up:

In a continued endeavour to raise awareness, Guria organized school meetings along the vulnerable areas of the Indo-Nepal border to discuss the issues of human trafficking and forced prostitution. Young children are especially vulnerable and must therefore be educated before bringing home the information they learned in school to their parents and community on the whole.