This Halloween, the scariest thing that millions of children across the world will experience is not a ghost or a ghoul, but the fear of starvation, exploitation and being left behind.

While children here dress up in their scariest costumes and go trick-or-treating, their peers elsewhere will don rags and go to work. Not because it is Halloween, but because that is what they do every day of the year.

We have decided to go trick-or-treating on behalf of those children for whom Halloween is an everyday horror. So, when we say “trick-or-treat”, we really hope you say “treat!”

Here are the ways in which you can say “treat!”
- Make a contribution on our online donation page
- Mail a check addressed to Vibha, 1030 E El Camino Real, #424, Sunnyvale, CA 94087.

Gujarat Flood Relief Efforts

Gujarat Flood Relief Efforts

In August this year, swollen rivers swamped thousands of villages and towns across southern and western India. India’s annual monsoon rains, vital for its agriculture driven economy, caused flooding across at least five states, killing more than 300 people, inundating villages and causing widespread damage to crops.

Gujarat, a western Indian state, was severely affected. About 200 villages were cut off, and Surat, an industrial town known for its diamond-cutting and textile trades, was without power as floodwaters left three million people stranded without electricity, food and drinking water. Most of them became homeless.

The worst affected villages were in the rural parts of Surat, Amod and Jambusar, where there was flooding due to the release of water from Tapi, Kadana and Palam dams on the Mahisagar river. There was serious damage to households, agriculture and road infrastructure. In the district of Bharuch alone, the estimated loss was well over 5000 crore rupees. State government reports, as quoted by the media, stated that at least 11 districts had been severally affected. Over a thousand hectares of standing crops had been totally destroyed.

Vibha contributed $10,000 to relief efforts through the Gram Vikas Trust. The Trust commenced relief work in the Amod and Jambusar areas and disbursed immediate needs like plastic sheets, rice, lentils, cooking oil, flour, match boxes, spices and basic medicines to last them for a week. About 100,000 water pouches & 38,000 packages of food and snacks were made by women in Self Help Groups and dispatched to affected areas. To ensure these food packets reach the affected areas, volunteers defied heavy rain and walked through waist deep water to reach the remote areas. In some cases, where vehicles were unable to navigate the flood waters, boats were used to supply emergency aid. In Surat and the surrounding areas worst affected by the torrential rain, boats have been inoperable and food supplies were being air-dropped by the Indian Air force.

Gram Vikas Trust in conjunction with the "District Health Authority, Bharuch" also organised a 250 people strong medical team at Bharuch. In addition to aid distribution, the Gram Trust also plans to start trauma relief courses to help individuals deal with the psychological and emotional effects of the devastating flood.

Vibha is proud to be associated with the trust for its prompt action that helped restore dignity and in many cases sanity to the daily lives of those devastated by the flood. We hope to continue our association with organisations that are committed to the reconstruction of communities damaged by such calamities.

Write To Us...

Your feedback is important to us. Vibha welcomes any comments, suggestions or questions you may have about our projects, programs, products, monitoring etc. If you are particularly interested in a topic and would like to see Vibha showcase it please let us know.

Vibha Walk/Run 2006

Vibha Walk/Run is a National Fundraiser that we organize to raise awareness and funds for child development projects in India.

We have had very successful Walks across our action centers in different cities. Please visit our Walk Pledge page and help us reach our target of $75000.

Together, we can do much more!
Dream a little! Do a Little!

Project Profile

Bhagavatula Charitable Trust (BCT),
Andhra Pradesh

BCT was founded in 1976 by Dr. B.V.Parameshwara Rao, who returned to India after completing his PhD in the USA. Believing firmly that the progress of India lay in the well-being of its villages, he started several rural developmental initiatives that would become the model for others in the country.

His first project, even before the trust was formed, was to build a high school for rural children in the village of Dimili by mobilizing funds, labor and initiative from the community itself. Seeking to extinguish what he terms the seven “types” of poverty – economic, bodily, mental, cultural, spiritual, political and societal - BCT has programs that encompass the fields of agriculture, health care, women’s empowerment, skill training for the disabled and education. These programs are being used to transform the lives of people in about a 100 villages in Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh. Encouraging the villagers to take charge of their own sustainable progress and educating the youth to be the ambassadors of this change is the hallmark of BCT.

BCT has a far-ranging set of education initiatives. In many villages, BCT runs non-formal education (NFE) centers and Innovative and Experimental Project (IEP) schools for universal elementary education. The difference between government run schools and IEP schools is that in addition to teaching academics, the IEP schools address the 7 types of poverty described above. Currently there are 135 primary schools and 15 upper primary schools serving around 7500 children.

Since 1994 BCT has been running a model residential high school for children in 6th to 10th standard. Around a 100 children are chosen on the basis of merit when they finish their schooling in the BCT run primary schools. Since 2005, Vibha has been funding the operational expenses of the model residential high school program to the extent of $10,000 per year. Vibha’s funds were used to pay for the teacher salaries, boarding, uniforms, books and health check-ups. It costs around Rs 7500 ($166) to cover one child’s expenses for one year.

The students get skill-oriented, self-reliant and village-based education which will help them to earn a livelihood upon completion of their schooling. They are exposed in equal measure to academic education according to the state syllabus, vocational activity and social animation at the village level. Some of the vocational activities include – small kitchen gardening, manufacturing of lacquered wooden toys, spinning khadi-yarn and minor electrical and mechanical repair works. The students also actively participate in “Balamandiram” – a movement to create awareness among villagers about various aspects like hygiene, health and literacy. The children travel to various villages to convey the message of “roles and responsibilities” to their elders through dance dramas. It may “take a village to raise a child”, but each child can transform a village!

The goal of this project is to reproduce the successes of the model high school across the nearly 100 villages served by BCT.

If you would like more information on Bhagavatula Charitable Trust please contact us at projects@vibha.org.

Vibha 1030 E El Camino Real, #424 Sunnyvale, CA 94087
Phone: 408-997-9992 | Fax: 775-593-1061

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Vibha is a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit, non-religious, non-political organization that seeks to restore to underprivileged children their basic rights to food, shelter, health and education - in short, a future.
All donations to Vibha are tax exempt in the US.