By Michele Leight
High up in the Himalayas in the hill town of Darjeeling in India, a local organization called Hayden Hall is reaching out to the most vulnerable in the community - children, and their mothers. What they have acheived is impressive and heart warming, and many communities across the world would benefit from safe-havens like this, that prevent the treacherous downward spiral into poverty.
Founded in 1969, Hayden Hall is a not-for-profit relief and development association based in Darjeeling that focuses on providing opportunities to poor families through empowering women. Their philosophy is simple: by helping women help themselves economically, there will be a positive effect on their children and families. Their goal is to provide the three basic needs of health, housing and food first, after which members of Hayden Hall's women's cooperative are given the opportunity to earn an income to further their own development and those of their families. The NGO also provides micro-credit to poor people that have never been able to get loans in the past through their co-operative Credit Union, which has proven to be incredibly successful.
Once a bustling tourist resort, and a legendary tea producing region, Darjeeling's local residents are now contending with political upheaval and social unrest that has resulted in the closure of many world-famous tea estates that have been forced to let workers go. Whenever there are media reports of politically motivated "incidents," the tourists stop coming, which inevitably impacts on local jobs that are dependent on tourists, trekkers and hikers. Local shops, hotels, restaurants and small businesses suffer, and more local people lose their jobs. Sadly, the beautiful hill people that have been reknowned for their independence and hard work are now threatened by the dark cloud of widespread unemployment.
Towns like Darjeeling that are close to border regions shared with Nepal and Bangladesh - and Bihar, the neighboring state within India - are becoming hotbeds of trafficking in adults and children of both sexes for exploitive labor, the sex industry, and, in some cases, political or terrorist organizations looking for recruits. Most do not know what they have signed up for when they agree to leave their families and communities with an "employer" or "agent" who promises them a great job in another town. The majority end up in lives of slavery, drudgery and abuse. Some, mercifully, are rescued.
Darjeeling is the kind of place that the innocent and unaware are likely to be trafficked from, then taken to Siliguri railway station down in the Plains - or Douars - that connects with the rest of India. Siliguri also connects with Bangladesh and Nepal, where it is believed thousands of people are trafficked annually into India. Its proximity to impoverished border towns makes it one of the hottest trafficking spots in India, where traffickers disburse their human "commodities" throughout the sub-continent and beyond. Top prices are paid to traffickers for Nepalese boys, but that requires a story of its own. There are disturbing accounts of underground "auctions" of Nepalese boys in Bombay, whose families believe they are going into domestic service. There are reliable reports the young boys are used for sex, and some are flown to the Middle East for the same purpose, where family ties are severed for years, if not permanently. It is easy for children to go missing amidst mind-blowing overcrowding at bus and train stations in India, where they can easily be snatched by traffickers. Much tougher laws need to be implemented - and enforced - against traffickers of children in India.
Like Nepal and Bangladesh, the region surrounding Darjeeling is vulnerable to insurgents and terrorist organizations, who enlist the services of traffickers to recruit young sons of the poor with promises of an education, food and a warm bed. Parents often have no idea what the "education" involves or that their children will be brainwashed, and indoctrinated to become terrorists or insurgents. They just want to see them eat a hot meal.
The importance of places like Hayden Hall in Darjeeling is that they keep children safe and they help keep a paycheck in the family. When parents can maintain a roof over their children's heads, and put food on the table, half the battle is won. When children regularly attend schools that have their best interests at heart, it protects them from predators - including terrorist and criminal organizations with hidden agendas. Paying school fees is where mom's income usually goes in developing nations. Women I have spoken with in India tell me they use their income from a grassroots business, sewing, or domestic service to send their children to as good a school as they can afford, because they see education as their child's ticket out of poverty. Only then do they dare hope for a better future for their kids.
Preventing the slide into poverty which spawns so many atrocities is possible when local organizations like Hayden Hall are imbedded within communities at risk, because they are able to build up a level of trust with the local people. Several organizations dot the hillsides of this beautiful region, with views of the spectacular Kunchenjunga mountain range, of which Mount Everest is a part, and many more are needed to combat human traffickers alone. Putting traffickers behind bars is a necessary focus in this high risk region to prevent the gross exploitation of the children of the poor. A lawyers collective would help control trafficking because they can deliver legal representation to families that cannot afford to pay legal fees to recover children held against their will by criminals and thugs. Other dangers are more basic, like hunger and disease. Infants still die of diarrea, which can be prevented with clean drinking water and cured with a few tablets. Desperate parents often give in to traffickers when they see what hunger and disease do to their children, because they believe they can give them a better future. The infant mortality rate is deeply distressing because it is preventable.
Hayden Hall offers a wide variety of self-help and educational programs to economically challenged families, including the nursery school, skill-training for mothers, a co-operative Credit Union that oversees micro-loans to poor people, a day care center, health clinics and nourishing meals for children that spend the day there. Babies are dropped off at the day care center so their mothers can work knowing they are safe. While there is no fee for the children to attend the day care center, it is required that mothers give one day of their time each month to work there. This "co-operative of mothers" not only helps reduce the overhead, it also places mothers in the orbit of their children for the day they are "on duty," when they also get a chance to meet other mothers from the community. There was real camaraderie among the women I saw at Hayden Hall that fosters a secure feeling of "home" for the children.
Safeguarding children requires more vigilance in impoverished regions in many countries today. The state of Bihar which borders the state of West Bengal where Darjeeling is situated has the lowest per capita income in India, and correspondingly notorious exploitation of the poor and their children. This dynamic exists in Latin America, Mexico, the Balkans, Cambodia and other nations where grinding poverty forces weary families to do the unthinkable - like sell a child so the rest of the family can eat - or let children and wives prostitute, or go off to jobs far away from home with strangers. Some friends and family members are lured by "employment agents" - for significant sums of money - to convince local families to let their children go away to work. Once these children (anyone under the age of 18) leave home, they are at the mercy of the worst elements of society. It is best that they do not leave their homes in the first place, which they often do under pressure because the family needs money. In India, traffickers are known to offer a down-payment of $100 to the child's parents as "security" on the deal, a small fortune in towns and villages where some earn as little as 50 cents a day. Reading any local newspaper in India is proof that, sadly, some parents sell their children intentionally - but some are caught and held accountable.
With such obvious risks lurking for the children of the poor, taking care of mom is a great way to safeguard her child, or children. Hayden Hall offers programs for local mothers to learn a skill so they can earn a living - like weaving rugs and other useful items on traditional looms on the floor below the nursery school and day care center. Their cheerful facility includes a shop located on one of the busiest streets in Darjeeling that sells bags, table mats and rugs woven by the moms.
On one wall of Hayden Hall's shop, a hand painted sign reads:
"Give me a rupee and I eat for a day
Teach me to weave and I eat for a lifetime............"
A rupee is the local currency.
When I walked around Hayden Hall in Darjeeling, with mists gathering on the surrounding mountains, and sat in on a classroom filled with toddlers learning to write under the guidance of a smiling, patient teacher, I felt at peace, because these innocent children were safe, happy and receiving a good education, which is always the greatest gift and investment in any childs future. The children yelled "bye-bye" so loudly when we left their classroom it was hard to walk away. Before leaving, I stopped by the store and bought an orange rug woven by one of the mothers that reflects the culture and crafts of this timeless Himalayan region. When I look at it in my home in New York I think, "paycheck for mom - daycare for babies and nursery school for toddlers!" It makes me feel good.
Darjeeling has excellent schools. Vivien Leigh, the daughter of a British tea planter, attended the local Loreto Convent before embarking on her film career in England, and international movie stardom. Until recently, Indian tea planters had enormous success here, and Darjeeling tea is prized across the globe. Hopefully stability will return, enabling the tea gardens that are vital to the local economy to thrive once again. The loss of jobs is devastating in any community, but especially in situations without unemployment benefits or any healthcare or relief programs. This makes places like Hayden Hall so very essential.
As we made our way down the steep mountain road that leads to New Jalpaiguri railways station thousands of feet below in the Plains, we passed shoals of smiling school children walking home, or to a bus stop. We passed the famous blue "Toy Train" puffing along on the only narrow gauge steam railway line remaining in India (built by the British), that still serves communities along its route - including Kurseong, and mist shrouded Ghoom with it famous monastery, a beautiful place to visit, with hospitable monks and young future monks, featured here.
The sweet, pine scented Himalayan air blew in through the window of the jeep as we continued to wind our way down the mountainside, and clouds hung in clusters in the valleys below, etched with terraced tea gardens. It was so breathtakingly beautiful it was hard to leave it all behind. I wished for an end to the political instability that is hurting the local people that need to work and support their families. A convoy of jeeps packed with tourists passed us on the ascent up the mountain, a reminder of happier times, when that was a normal sight.
At New Jalpaiguri railway station we were besiged by beggars, most of them children and teenagers in filthy clothes with matted hair who looked starved and cold. One twelve year old boy was carrying a wailing baby with a runny nose and huge brown eyes bright with fever. For these children there was no sanctuary, no protection - no Hayden Hall.
They were alone, caught in the merciless grip of poverty.