Manavya

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of joining my university coursemates for a field visit to ‘Manavya’, an NGO based about 12km from Pune in Bhugaon village. Manavya – ‘Humanity’ – is a residential home which shelters orphaned children and destitute women living with HIV/AIDS.

At present, Manavya houses 55 children (aged 2 to 14) along with seven women who act as ‘house mothers’. The majority are receiving anti retroviral treatment (ART) although it’s a struggle to meet costs, since the state does not fund this medication and all facilities are provided free of charge.

Project superintendent Joseph Shinde explained to us that Manavya faced several false starts before it was finally established at Bhugaon in 1997. A number of other potential locations in and around Pune had been scouted, but all fell through because of local community objections; the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS affects institutions as well as individuals. Still, looking at the site it’s clear that the countryside location works well. The fresh air certainly comes as a welcome change from the pollution in Pune city.

Manavya takes a holistic approach to the development of the children. Along with meeting the basic needs of food, shelter and medical care, the home also has a very small school, staffed by qualified teachers. The original plan was to send the children to local village schools once they reached Standard VII, but sadly this proved problematic. Stigma reared its head again: parents of the non-Manavya children, fearful and ill-informed about HIV/AIDS, started withdrawing their children from the schools. There’s clearly a long way to go to tackle ignorance about the pandemic, although Manavya is working to integrate with the community and the onsite hospital (currently under construction) will provide general facilities to the local population.

In all truth, the formal part of our field visit finished in little over 15 minutes and we got to spend a couple of fun hours playing with the children. A brighter bunch you could not hope to meet and they’re full of energy. Put simply, they just crave some attention and personal contact. Many of the children have already experienced rejection – by their families, once their parents died or left – and Manavya works to help them overcome this.

Many of us plan to visit again. I’m really looking forward to it.

manavya@gmail.com