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And so...
Brian Flanagan • 2 May 2020
bekind during this pandemic
May 2020
“And so” - It seems to be a common reply to the start of many sentences by our health experts when replying to questions during media interviews about these strange times we are experiencing.
A response which has that political air about it with rarely a simple, straight-forward "YES!" or "NO!", but then the answer isn’t simple to this nightmare we are living through.
In Kolkata, our children in the Bekind
Boys’ Home are thankfully all well, albeit confined to the building under strict lockdown measures imposed by the Government of India announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24th. A lockdown, which has been extended for the country's 1.3 billion citizens, represents a mammoth task for the authorities and has caused hunger and death for many poor daily labourers and their families as they tried to leave cities and return to their villages on foot which in many cases were hundreds of kilometres away.
The Bekind
boys have been kept well occupied by four of the dedicated staff who are with all twenty-three children, aged from six to thirteen. No easy task to care for so many young children under the one roof! Our rooftop area has been put to good use of late with the air quality greatly improved in, previously one of the world's most polluted cities. With regular contact using WhatsApp video we are able to communicate, chat and have some fun.
In late March here in Ireland there was a writing competition for children to tell a short story in 300 words. The winners of the three age categories:6-10, 11-14 & 15-18 years of age, read their stories on the Joe Duffy Live Line show on RTE radio. . Irish author John Boyne initiated it and had a panel to judge the many entries.
I read the winning junior category story called “Itchy Scratchy” to the Bekind
boys, asking them if they knew what the words "itchy" and "scratchy" meant. They did and gestured lots of itching and underarm scratching to demonstrate their understanding. I invited them to write their own short story, 100 words for the smaller boys and 300 for the older ones. Carer Ajoy had done a great job in encouraging the children and it was so uplifting receiving their audio recordings and copies of their written stories.
And so, at a time when the children are so restricted due to Covid-19 they could allow their imagination to run free, fact or fiction, happy or sad, it was their story.
We had a panel of six here at home and one friend in Kolkata review their entries. One has to bear in mind the children were writing in English and not in their native tongue, Bengali. The marking was close and I was so surprised to see one of our nine-year olds score and incredible 66 marks out of 70.
In a previous post, December 2018, I had written about two orphaned boys I had the privilege of bringing from Hope Foundation’s crisis intervention centre to start their new life in Bekind. With both parents deceased, the older boy had been subjected to so much trauma as a six-year old that he had to be taught how to speak again. With encouragement and counselling he slowly recovered, even his once expressionless face occasionally gave way to a beautiful smile.
That smile was beaming back at me when we announced AK (2nd from left below) was the winner last Sunday. The little one who was so weak and malnourished, physically and psychologically, had fought back to show his talents and his gift for the written word. Indeed, the last words in his story, the King and the Spider are
“try and try again until you succeed”, a moral by which he has clearly been influenced.
In June 2019 we had a great group of nine student volunteers from Castleknock Community College who made a big effort with their fundraising campaigns which really enabled us to meet our budget. The students bonded with the Indian children instantly and will always carry their Kolkata experiences in their hearts.
In our hearts at home is our newly arrived first grandchild, baby Max, who we were fortunate enough to spend time with before the lockdown. We really miss being able to hold him close but like many grandparents we know at some stage restrictions will ease and we will be reunited. Similarly, we took for granted our ability to visit and spend quality time with the children in Kolkata. My wife Martina and I had planned to return this summer but the Indian embassy will not issue travel visas anytime in the near future, and so we must wait patiently until a vaccine arrives and air travel resumes.
On the ground in Kolkata the Hope Foundation staff have been really active in reaching out to hundreds of poor families who have lost their source of income with the lockdown. Hope Hospital manager, Samiran and his team have distributed food packages in the streets and rural villages.
And so, we have managed with your generosity to pay the bills for another year, to support the little ones almost lost but now thriving. I don’t know what lies ahead with the fallout from this pandemic. The pause button has been pressed on our planned fundraising events. Our student volunteer group for 2021 is uncertain. It has impacted lives and livelihoods across the globe but my default position returns to the saying “If you believe you can or believe you can’t, you are correct”.
We have to believe we can. Hard to credit that last November a great number of Irish gathered in Kolkata for the 20th anniversary celebration of the Hope Foundation. The great and the good were there on Foundation Day. Hundreds of children performed on stage, singing and dancing in a spectacular show where Hope patron, Jeremy Irons who attended suggested the show should be brought to the West End such was the standard!
And so, high standards of musical talent continued when my daughter, Katie and her pal (my other daughter) Lucy Deane organised a wonderful musical evening in Clontarf RFC raising over €4,000 for Bekind. The girls had been with me in Kolkata for ten days and volunteered in Kalighat working with the destitute in Mother Teresa’s home.
And so, lots of unfinished business is there for us in Bekind
Boys’ Home. Children to be cared for, protected, nourished and educated. We are so fortunate to have such good and caring staff managed by Hope Kolkata Foundation. We are also so fortunate to have such good friends in the Gupta family who regularly visit the Bekind
boys, never arriving empty handed but bringing educational books and treats. Mr and Mrs Gupta have enjoy celebrating the children’s birthday parties and are always welcome guests. Their son, Akhilesh who came and stayed with us in Ireland in 2004 as a fifteen-year-old exchange student is also a natural with the children and visits them regularly.
Yours,
Brian
In this newsletter, Founder Director Brian Flanagan shares insights from his latest trip to Kolkata, with a group of students from CCC.
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In this Christmas Newsletter Brian shares some updates following his return from India in December 2023.
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After 11 years, the Bekind Boys' Home is moving!
In this newsletter, Brian Flanagan, Founder Director of Bekind Ireland, shares some of his experiences from his visits to Kolkata in April and November 2022.
Congratulations to Ricky Flanagan for completing the Dublin Marathon for Bekind
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Happy birthday Bekind Boys' Home
The saying “ absence makes the heart grow fonder ” has been uppermost in my mind over the past months. My regular Zoom or WhatsApp calls with the children in Kolkata are a help but almost two years have passed since being with them in person. I am amused by the deeper voices of some of the children as they enter their teenage years. The voices and the bodies change and a request for six new bunk beds was a reminder of how much the boys are growing. A very generous donation from a local person came just at the right time to cover the costs.
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(IRL) CLG trading as "Bekind Ireland" is an Irish company limited by guarantee (Company Number: 448441) and Irish registered charity (Registered Charity Number: 20067960), with its offices at 33 Woodpark, Castleknock, Dublin D15KP6R, Ireland.