Hello friends,

Just wanted to give information about CDS-Shoshana for the new viewers of the blog.

Shoshana is basically a German based charitable Organization with Ms.Martha B Foerch as the Managing Director. She is the founder and Director of Shoshana. Shoshana started its work in India in 2000 September. Shoshana started working with Community Development Society (local society) with the main aim of helping needy women for their self help. The  work started in Andhra Pradesh at Vijayawada as the main office, later changed to Guntur and now we have our own office building at Chirala town, Prakasam District.

 CDS-Shoshana started its work with two projects in 2000, one is a Sewing Centre and one is a Medical Centre. Each project is selected after thorough examination of the facts and possibilities for opening a centre mentioned  in the applications we get from the local societies from different areas of Andhra Pradesh. Our work is spread in Prakasam, Guntur and Krishana Districts of Andhra Pradesh.

.In Sewing Centres we have a tailoring and embroidery instructor, teaching 10 women as a batch for 8-9 months for free of cost depending on the learning capabilities of the students . Students are selected irrespective of their caste and age but priority is given to poor , uneducated and. needy sections of the society. After completion of the course, students are supported with a sewing machine so they can start their work for their self help.

Second is the Medical Project - Medical projects are mainly started in areas where there is no medical support from any where. There will be a trained nurse at the project for 5 days a week giving out free medication and infusions and going around the village to attend old and disabled patients.

For the last 10 years we have 26 projects - 10 Medical and 16 Sewing Projects. I visit the project twice a month and Martha our Director visits the projects twice a year and checks the all round progress of the projects and see that majority of the needy women gets support from our work. We have an official audit once a year and  we take utmost care that the  money we get from the donors goes directly to the needy people.
We are very thankful for the donors for their continuous support for the last 10 years helping hundreds of needy women for their self help.

New batch at Bapatla sewing project

Hai,

New batch of 8 students started at Manjula's place, Bapatla. Officially they start from 1st of April. Majority of the students are housewives belonging to poor background. All of them are married with two children each and husbands are masons and carpenters. They are from surrounding area of Drivers colony, Bapatla where our Sewing Centre is located.  They will be taught stitching and embroidery. Some of the students said they want to stitch for their own family and some said they want to start a business after finishing the course. I hope they will utilize the time and make themselves able for their self help. Some of the previous batch students are still coming to Manjula for practice. The road opposite to the Centre is almost ready now so there will be no problem for the students even in rainy season.

Ananda back to work

Hai,

Naveen's mother, Ananda (Nurse from Ramapuram) started working again from last friday. I hope she recovered from all the sorrow, losing her son. Her elder son who is studying 7th standard in a residential school near Visakhapatnam is also back to school.  She said  she is planning to get him over to Chirala for the year.

New Med centre, Karamchedu

Hai,

Our new medical centre at Karamchedu started working officially. Our new nurse Prasanna is slowly getting used to her job responsibility. Not many patients last week.  She is working in the morning and evening. Majority of the people here are field workers so most of the patients are coming in the evening time. The nurse is happy with her work. Today i visited the place just to check with the people there and give some suggestions to the nurse if necessary. The centre needs to be known more,  that many people can use the services we are giving. Local people seems happy with the medical support.

Inauguration of new medical project - Karamchedu

Hai,

Yesterday we opened a new medical centre on the outskirts of  Karamchedu village. I have been telling about this village in my previous blogs.  Quite close to Chirala town. We opened the centre in Ambedkar colony which comes under one of the backward areas which mainly consists of Christian and other tribal community. People living in Government houses and mainly working as field workers and rag pickers.

We ourselves took initiative to give medical support here having seen the need. We had meeting with the village elders. First we thought of opening the centre in the village community hall which is used for village social activities but keeping in view that health centre needs to have its own space and hygiene, the villagers suggested a seperate individual house and they voluntarily gave the house for the centre.  The participation from the villagers for the betterment of the village facilities is really appreciating and it gives us scope to help them more if the local people care for their own area.

Yesterday evening we had the inuguration with a small gathering including the village elders and local pastor. It was late evening since we wanted to have the people participate in the gathering after they come back from their work..

Meeting started off with a small prayer and followed by the introduction of the organization and its work in different parts, introducing the nurse to the villagers and the facilities they get in the health centre. The local representative of Ambedkar colony opened the centre and the president of the tribal colony also participated in the meeting. Both are women. Our organization is also mainly women based project it is quite co- incindental that both the heads from this area including the nurse are women.They made annoucements among their groups regarding the medical support and they thanked the whole team of CDS- Shoshana for noticing the need in their area and for taking care of their village.

Naveen's death

 Very sad to inform all that our Naveen ( Son of Ramapuram nurse) died this morning. On one hand he is lucky that no more suffering for him but his mother lost her only companion. I pray God that his soul rest in peace. Thanks to all who are caring for Naveen.  Life is Short and the end is very tragic.

hai,

Today is the last office day for Martha here in India for this trip. We were discussing  a few things about the betterment of our work. Tomorrow morning she is leaving to Chennai and from there, she is flying back to Germany. I believe this trip went successful for her. We enjoyed our company and i think its great working together.