Cause: Upliftment of underprivileged children and women who have been corrupted by unscrupulous practices prevalent in the society and exploited by the drug mafia. This is in the form of basic education as well as vocational training.

Profile: Feb 8, 1999. A socially conscious family sits in their home (in a slum) when a child comes running to them, crying. The notorious drug lord, who wants to force his mother into joining the drug peddling business, is beating the child's mother. A man rises to the occasion, deals with the situation firmly and reports to the police. The upliftment drive has had its first victim. He counsels the child and teaches him. In due course, the child gets more children from the slums and with the help of his family and friends, Mamoon Akhtar (a 32 year old slum dweller suffering from polio in his left hand) starts an NGO under the banner of Samaritan Help Mission.

SHM today has reached a stage where it provides various kinds of rehabilitation services to children of drug-abused parents and those in the trafficking racket. Thus it safeguards the present and future of these innocent children and gives them a direction in life. Today its activities include imparting education through a formal school up to fourth standard, non formal education and vocational programmes for working girls, dropouts, adult working women, conducting awareness programmes and conducting free eye operation camps. The increasing success of these ventures has led SHM to grow infrastructurally, financially as well as broadening its scope of activities, wherein it plans to start a full fledged school.

SHM started with only with 6 children, now there are 430 children in various educational programs such as Illiteracy Elimination, Montessori, and in the Vocational Training Program.

Activities: Below is a partial list of activities through which SHM is trying to make a difference,

• ILLITERACY ELIMINATION PROGRAM: to eradicate illiteracy among the children living in the slum of Tikiapara Howrah and were involved in drug trafficking and peddling
• VOCATIONAL TRAINING PROGRAM: the course is mainly targetted to make women independent, includes Dress making, Hand Embroidery, Fabric Painting, Henna
• COMPUTER LITERACY PROGRAMME: This program is geared to provide computer education to children who do not have access to computers at home or school
• SHM MONTESSORI PROGRAM: The program was started for the toddlers whose mother had to get back to work and did not want to leave their children to the mercy of the slum lords/drug traffickers

Arpan's Participation:

• Initial target is to provide steady stream of funds on monthly basis. Four families committing dollar a day totaling $120 per month. (Approx. Rs. 5,000 per month)
• In the second phase adopt a center/s and/or children and provide ongoing support
• Anand is, and will continue to be in touch with Mamoon Akhtar and finalize the details of the second phase
• Encourage all the contributors of ARPAN to visit any facility in India. The trip can be planned in Advance from USA

For more details about Samaritan Health Mission, please Click here.