Uta Dammann talks about Sponsoring a Dalit (‘Untouchables’) Child in India
They are considered to be lowlife, they are dirty, they are not worthy, they are unsuitable, they are untouchable: the Dalits in India.
To be a Dalit or Harijan, as Gandhi called them, means to be at the bottom end of society: the word “Dalit” means “ground”, “suppressed”, “crushed”, “broken to pieces”.
In daily life it almost always means poverty: A Dalit is not worthy of schooling, a proper education or to learn a vocation.
What they do is the lowest a human being can do: they clean sewers, the streets and latrines, they butcher animals, they remove carcasses and waste.
In India all this work is considered to pollute the individual, and to be contagious. As a result the Dalits are the “Untouchables”, the people who are below human beings.
Even now Dalits are discriminated against, especially in rural areas. They are not allowed to go to school, to access temples, eating places or access to clean water sources.
An exisiting sponsor , Uta Dammann, gives the following reasons:
‘A couple of years ago I heard an impromptu talk given by a young student, who had recently returned from a hiking trip to the Himalyas, visiting remote villages, in support of a Charity, the purpose of the trip was to raise awareness for their Sponsorship Programme.
There are now many schools, which also double as Health and Adult Education Centres, thereby helping whole communities of Dalits to escape a lifetime of servitude.
The sponsorship program has been a very fulfilling process for me.
It is lovely and touching to receive handwritten letters and drawings from India. This also provides a very personal link to the child, which I am sponsoring. I am now sponsoring two children and I will be sponsoring another child’s education very shortly and my only regret being that I had not done so much earlier’
Education does not only change children’s lives, but also that of their families.