The 4th of July, the interns along with many of the other people from Maitri went to Vrindavan for the launch of Project Jeevan. This was my second day working with Maitri and my first real experience with one of their many projects. What an adventure. This launch will supply the widows with meals, doctors and medications for their various ailments. Getting to Vrindavan was an experience. We woke up bright and early and as soon as we got outside we were welcomed by the monsoons. This did not, however, deter our journey. We arrived in Vrindavan and a few of the widows had already started to arrive. Thankfully, a few Maitri workers had been in Vrindavan for 3 days previous to the launch in order to set up. So we got to work right away.
We were posted at the medicine counter. We got off to a rocky start because we were severely out numbered by the widows, not to mention my Hindi is limited to just a few words. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for us to get into the swing of things and soon enough we got into a really good rhythm. The widows would come to us after being checked out by the doctors. They would hand us their information card which had their name, age, address, picture, etc. On the back their would be the medications as well as any referrals that they needed. Every widow would get Calcium, B-Complex, Vitamin C and for many of them multivitamins as well to take for 10 days, at which time they would get enough medication for the next 10 days etc. We would then send them to get their other more individual medications for cough, cataracts, etc. Aside from their individual ailments, many of these women also suffer from aches and pains which we helped them with as well.
We were posted at the medicine counter. We got off to a rocky start because we were severely out numbered by the widows, not to mention my Hindi is limited to just a few words. Thankfully, it only took a few minutes for us to get into the swing of things and soon enough we got into a really good rhythm. The widows would come to us after being checked out by the doctors. They would hand us their information card which had their name, age, address, picture, etc. On the back their would be the medications as well as any referrals that they needed. Every widow would get Calcium, B-Complex, Vitamin C and for many of them multivitamins as well to take for 10 days, at which time they would get enough medication for the next 10 days etc. We would then send them to get their other more individual medications for cough, cataracts, etc. Aside from their individual ailments, many of these women also suffer from aches and pains which we helped them with as well.
This was overall an amazing experience. I had never really heard about the terrible treatment of widows before I started as an intern with Maitri. Seeing these women first hand was extremely sad, not only were many of them very thin from lack of food, but their clothes were dirty and many of them did not have the proper care and medication to live a happy and healthy life. Although I just got here and just started interning with Maitri, I still felt an amazing sense of success at the end of the day.
-Jill
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