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Mumbai shock for charity worker
17/12/2004
A BLIND volunteer has returned from a two-week trip in India
where he met some of the world's poorest people.
Ricci Downward went on the fact finding mission with Christian
Relief and the development agency Tearfund and visited four
healthcare projects in Delhi, Mumbai and in the rural Maharashtra
province.
Ricci, who has been a volunteer for Tearfund for six years,
promoting their work at churches in and around Manchester said he
wanted to experience for himself the hard work that went on at the
projects.
He said: "I'm always talking about the missions in India, their
work with local people and I often speak publicly about the world's
poorest people, but have seldom met them.
"The trip was hard work, physically and mentally as well as
emotionally. We all spent much of the time feeling amazed and
privileged because of the inspiring people we met."
Some of Ricci's personal highlights included a trip to the Asha
project in Delhi where he met people living in Delhi slums followed
by a trip to Mumbai where he visited Dharavi, the largest slum in
Asia.
Said Ricci: "Mumbai is truly a shocking city, with a very mobile
population. Consequently the slum we visited had no real sense of
community; I felt much less comfortable there than in Delhi."
Another project he visited was the Comprehensive Rural Health
project in Jamkhed in rural Maharashtra.
The project is run by Doctors Raj and Mabelle Arole whose hard work
gained them the Asian nobel prize in the 1970s.
"The phrase 'take it to Dr. Arole' has become a watch-word for
anyone whose illness won't improve or whose own doctor's opinion
they don't trust, across much of the state of Maharashtra," said
Ricci.
"The couple set up a hospital in the area in the 70s for the poor.
Everything about the hospital is simple. For example the incubator
used on babies is just a big lamp over a bed.
"The hospital is not fancy or posh and this is what attracts poor
people, who would otherwise feel intimated going to a large city
hospital.
"The visit will help me in my role of speaking in local churches
about the problems faced by the developing world."
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