Effort to aid children links India, America

Effort to aid children
links India, America
Educators plan June 13
festival to support work
with Kolkata youngsters
BY LINDA DeNICOLA
Staff Writer

The young girls at the Mitali Girls Coaching Center in Kolkata, India, are happy to have pen pals in America.

It seems as though Rosalie Giffoniello migrates with the birds. Every spring she makes the long trek from Kolkata, India, to Monmouth County on behalf of her Bengali students and then in the fall, after four hectic months of fund-raising, she heads back to Kolkata and the schools for poor children that she has established there.

Under the umbrella of the nonprofit Empower the Children organization, Giffoniello talks to children in area schools and raises funds wherever and whenever she can for the effort that serves Indian children in need and enriches them physically, intellectually and spiritually. Empower the Children was co-founded by Giffoniello, a retired speech therapist from the Jackson school system, and Janet Grosshandler-Smith, a school guidance counselor in Jackson.

Giffoniello has spent the last several years in India providing educational and enrichment programs, as well as basic necessities for children living in the slums and on the streets of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).

The most current project is the building of Bulbulir Basa, an orphanage that will offer shelter and educational opportunities for some of the street children who live in one of the poorest cities in the world, she said, adding that this project will supplement existing Empower the Children efforts such as daily school lunch programs, girls’ coaching center, music programs and a new library.

This year, she and Grosshandler-Smith will hold their big fund-raiser, "A Touch of India" festival, on June 13 at the Freehold Township Senior Center, Jackson Mills Road, about 1 mile south of Elton-Adelphia Road (Route 524), Freehold Township. The third annual fund-raiser for Empower the Children will feature classical dancing, music and songs, colorful saris, and Mehendi hand painting. Home-cooked Indian food will be a highlight of the day and vendors will be selling Indian art work and crafts. The festival will run from 1-5 p.m. and the entrance donation is $25. For more information call (732) 901-6733.

Giffoniello spent time recently visiting teacher Lisa Johnston’s seventh grade social-global issues students at the Eisenhower Middle School, Freehold Township. Johnston’s students, as well as Pat Rothman’s students in the Brielle Elementary School, Brielle, are participating in a pen pal exchange with students in Kolkata.

The letters from India come with pictures of the girls and when the Eisenhower students write back they include their pictures as well, Johnston said. She explained that the letters from India are written in Bengali and are translated by the teacher in India or by an instructor at Monmouth University, West Long Branch.

Johnston said of her students, "They are really concerned citizens who want to make a difference in the world. Through our work with Empower the Children they see how Rosalie’s work has made such a difference. From my viewpoint it’s not just about geography, it’s learning about cultural differences and the disparity that exists in our world."

Many of the Indian students wrote on their cards that they are poor. One Kolkata student wrote that she is 13 years old and in class IV, which means fourth grade.

"I have one sister. I am very poor," the youngster said.

Giffoniello wrote a letter to go with the cards that the girls made.

"We let them write whatever they wanted and then we translated it. I was shocked to see how many of them wrote, ‘I am very poor.’ ... I realized that being poor is what defines them. They live in tiny hovels, have no TV, computers, toys. They don’t go to the movies, play sports, play instruments. Their lives are frill-less and revolve around their poverty."

She asked Johnston to try to impress on her students that the girls are happy to have friends in America and don’t want sympathy or pity.

"They wrote the truth about their lives and being poor is their reality. This is hard for all of us to grasp – the gap be­tween the rich and the poor. But the girls are very polite and cooperative and sweet. So hopefully, these qualities will shine brighter than their poverty," Giffoniello said.

Johnston said her social-global issues students set a goal for themselves to raise $2,000 for the pen pal program. The money provides for the teachers, classes and food that is provided each day to the children in India.

Rothman said her students in Brielle are expressing an unusual interest in his­tory, geography, traditions and the cul­ture of the children in Kolkata.

"I am able to present concepts such as independence, liberty and social justice to these youngsters only because they are able to relate to real people, children like themselves," the teacher said.

Giffoniello is a Johnston family friend and that is how Johnston got involved with Empower the Children. But Giffoniello became aware of the plight of these children through a different route.

Before taking an early retirement and moving to India, Giffoniello lived in Neptune City and was on the child study team in the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District. She worked with Johnston’s mother, Rita Liberati, who was the head of the child study team, After awhile, Giffoniello left the Manalapan-Englishtown school district and took a job in the Jackson school dis­trict as a speech pathologist.

She said that one day she was lying on her bed thinking about what she should do with her summer. She had spent a couple of summers in Tibet teaching English to monks and nuns.

"Suddenly I heard something going bumpety bump down the stairs. A book had fallen off the shelf at the top of the stairs; one book out of the hundreds that were on the shelves. It was a book about Mother Teresa’s work in India. It’s called ‘Something Beautiful for God.’ In the book was a letter I had received from Mother Theresa inviting me to come to Calcutta to teach handicapped children. I felt it was a sign from above. Her spirit had kicked that book off the shelf," Giffoniello said.

The educator said she picked up the phone and called a travel agency. She spent the summer in Kolkata and taught at the Daya Dan orphanage.

She was shocked by what she saw and felt that she could make a difference. While the children were well fed and clean, they were left all day to lie in their cribs or on the floor. She said she knew they needed stimulation and specially designed educational programs.

When Giffoniello came back to New Jersey that fall, she made the decision to take an early retirement and rent out her house. Within five months she was back in India.

The organization she co-founded has now grown to include an orphanage that houses six boys in a rented apartment. One of the things that she hopes to ac­complish with the money she raises here is to build a larger orphanage that will house 25 boys and provide a school and lunch program for 30 destitute street children. She would also like to include a medical clinic in the building.

Another orphanage houses 50 multiply challenged young adults. Once a gloomy place, it is now attractively outfitted and decorated due to the efforts of the volun­teers in the Empower the Children orga­nization, Giffoniello said. Another or­phanage serves destitute children who live in the Ultadanga slum. On Dec. 1, 2002, Empower the Children inaugurated a daily lunch program which provides the children with their only nutritious meal of the day.

There are two schools, DISHA, a non-formal school committed to enriching the lives of the children living in the Manoharpukur slum. The teachers are being trained to use a preschool curricu­lum that was developed by Empower the Children in the United States.

Another school is for girls only. The Adarshya Mitali Coaching Center for Girls serves 17 girls living in a large slum near Rabindar Sarobar. The girls do their homework and study away from their de­pressing living conditions. A harmonium was donated last year so the girls also study traditional Bengali music.

Empower the Children is committed to moving the children beyond the basic ne­cessities to richer more meaningful lives. Giffoniello said $150 a year pays for one child’s fees at a neighborhood school.

Although Empower the Children needs donations, the organization also wel­comes volunteers. Donations may be sent to Empower the Children headquarters in care of Janet Grosshandler-Smith, 7 Ryans Way, Jackson 08527.