January

1st - New Year celebrations.

1st - Setting up of Self Help Group (SHG)

10th - Personal Hygiene guidelines given to children of day care centre.

14th - Makar Sankrati- The festival of Kites was celebrated in all the centers of Maher. The kites are an attraction for sure but there is one more thing which makes this festival special. A special sweet is made out of sesame seeds and jaggery/ sugar. There is a local saying in Marathi which goes with the sweet i.e. “Til gud ghya aani god god bola”, that means eat the sweet and say sweet things for the entire year.

15th - A seminar on cancer was held for children under the project Kishoredham.

26th - The entire Maher family got together to celebrates the Republic Day.

 

February

2nd - Birthday of Maher. This year Maher got a huge gift – a new building for Vatsalyadham project. Vatsalyadham is a home for mentally disturbed women. The old home had limited space and we were not able to accommodate more women. With the inauguration of new building we have more space now. The building was inaugurated by Shri (MR.) Sharad Pawar. Theunion minister of Agriculture and he has many more posts to his credit.

10th - Parent Teacher meeting for the children of day care centre was held on this day.

21st - The members of one SHG managed to open a sugar cane juice shop in a village called Shikrapur, (8-10 kms from Vadu).

29th –Every week the needy families are given food grains under our project Ekta.

29th – In villages many inter-caste marriages take place, due to this there is communal tension in the villages. To keep this under control a seminar was held on family relations and communal peace. The main aim of this seminar was to promote and maintain communal harmony.

 

March

1st – The administrative office was inaugurated. This was a significant day for the staff members of the administrative office. The office was donated by the Ring Family

2nd - Inauguration of the play ground in Thakarwasti. The honours were done by Andrea van der Leeuw and Dinesha Hoekstra. They both are young benefactors of Maher. Their fathers have been associated for Maher since a long time, now their children are coming forward to help Maher.

4th - Sr Lucy, Sr. Agnes along with other participants left for Jaipur to attend a conference. The conference was conducted by Global Peace Initiative of Women. Representatives from over 50 countries were present and shared their thoughts as to what needs to be done, for promoting peace.

8th - Women’s Day was celebrated in the villages. Kendur, a village approx 15 kms from Vadu marked the celebration with a rally in the morning. The participants of the rally were all women.

9th - Health Check-up for the children of day care centre was successfully done. 11th – The gathering of women in the villages was a great success.

15th - Two of the SHG repaid their loans to the bank.

26th - Two of our social workers, Mr. Anand and Ms Sally left for Austria. Maher is very grateful to Hartheim Institute for this great opportunity given to them.

30th – In Vatsalydham (home for mentally disturbed women) there was a shortage of hot water, thus the inmates were facing a problem. The Rotary Club of Pune Central donated Solar Heaters to Vatsalyadham. The inmates were so happy, their joy knew no bounds. Their heartfelt thanks to all the members of Rotary Club, Pune Central.

31st – As usual 12 families were given food grains under our project Ekta.

 

April

10th - The women from different villages got together to fight against the sale of alcohol in the villages. Alcohol is the main cause of all the worries of these women.

14th – AIDS awareness was spread in the villages through various methods such as Street Plays, Talks with the villagers etc.

16th – This day witnessed the most remarkable thing in the history of Maher. Our children Flew to UK on this day!!! It was a dream come true for all of us. We do not have enough words to Thank UK riends o Maher. We are also very grateful to all those people who helped us along the way.

 

May

15th -The children went for vacation.

16th- The house mothers also went for their well earned vacation. They look after the children for the entire year and deserve a break.

Once a friend, a friend for life. This is the motto of Maher.

To put it in another way, one might well say: “They came, they saw, and they were conquered.”