Preeti
March 23, 2004
We began sponsoring Preeti in November 2010. I remember having her child packet at home and my husband seeing it. He commented that she looked a little bit like our youngest daughter and suggested we sponsor her. I don't need to be told twice....
We received 42 letters from Preeti during our sponsorhip. She lives at home with her parents, and has several siblings (4 brothers and 3 sisters). Preeti is the second youngest child. Her family lives in the mountains in a home made of mud and tin. They have access to a community well for their water, and cook in a mud oven. In her letters, Preeti mentioned her family cultivating paddy, vegetables, mango and pineapple.
In March 2017, Compassion had to end its ministry in India, thus ending our connection to Preeti.
Miscellaneous info from letters:
- favorite person - older brother
- favorite animal - tiger
- favorite fruit - banana
- favorite subject - Oriya
- threw tooth on roof and asked sparrow to bring a new one
- loves school, especially poetry
- sleeps under mosquito net
Preeti attends Souri Colony Child Development Center EI 410-0329
She attends the project daily from 6:30-9:30 am. At the center she learns stories, math, science, English, songs, dance and games. She eats breakfast there and then goes to school at 10am.
She has participated in sports meets, dance competitions, song competitions, and children's retreats through her Compassion project. She has received an umbrella, school bag and sleeper from the project.
Preeti was able to receive the following gifts because of sponsorship:
- 2012 we sent a gift bag (doll, socks, t-shirt, pens, photo album and journal book)
- mosquito net
- dress (more than once)
- towel (more than once)
- chocolate (many times!)
- tray plate
- steel glass
- biscuits
- pressure cooker
- cup set
- dress and water bottle (birthday 2016)
Preeti ended every letter with..."Please pray for my study, health and family."
message from partner of child development center...
Children enrolled in the center are from impoverished families. Both children and their parents are happy to have this center in this area. Children are getting benefit such as quality education and nurturing in their physical, spiritual, socio-emotional, and cognitive areas of development that is helping them to grow in self-confidence.
Children attend the center in the morning. Our workers teach them from the Global Resource Curriculum where they learn stories, songs and important life lessons. After the program, we provide nutritious meal to our children. We conduct extracurricular activities like sports, development programs. Then center also provides nutritious food, hygiene supplies, and stationary to children.
We celebrate important events like Project Day, Compassion Day, Children's Day, Teacher's Day, Father's Day, Mother's Day, World Malaria Day, World HIV/AIDS day, World Tuberculosis Day, and all national days to educate children about the significance of each.
I would like to write to you about the awareness programs we conduct in our center on issues like child marriage, child labour, and HIV?AIDS. These programs help to change the mind-set of parents. Parents slowly understand the need for these training and are regular to the parents' meetings we conduct periodically. We educate parents that they are the primary caregivers and hence it is important for them to provide a conducive atmosphere at home for the children.
Our children are grown up, some of them are going to colleges. I could see personally that children are learning a lot of things. Now they are writing letters on their own, able to discern between good and bad. People of the community are observing what the center is doing for their children. Seeing the progress of our children, many community parents request us to enroll their children into the program.
