"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." This statement could not hold more truth and this made me go for the camp at Parel for street children and women, which was held on 25th August 2019.
It was my first camp with Switch India and I was new to it and nervous too. Nervous whether I would be able to do justice to the task or not. The camp was set under the open sky.
The camp started with the Robinhood Army cutting the nails of the children followed by the Switch team check their BP. They were then given deworming tablets. Oh those little hands and innocent eyes!!
The 29 children were then called one at a time to get there height, weight measured and their BMI was calculated. The rest of them sang poems and songs while waiting for their turn. This was followed by a general examination of the children where they were checked and then their chief complaints were noted and they were given references accordingly.
Their parents were asked to take them to a nearby government hospital. An amateur like me had some difficulty in the beginning but I was guided by the seniors and soon got the hang of it. The session with the children ended by a talk on personal hygiene in which they were also taught the 7 step method to wash hands. How they loved imitating the steps!
The passerby were intrigued to find doctors at a pavement under a monorail bridge as they looked upon us with their impressed faces. The next session was with women on the topic of menstrual health. They were asked if they had any problems. Their problems were discussed by our team. They were given a pep talk on the importance of menstrual hygiene. This ended with the distribution of sanitary napkins to the women.
I had come for this camp with the motive of learning and helping the unhoused. But I left with much more. As we were leaving the camp, the appreciation expressed by the women and children and the gratitude on their faces will always be remembered by me.
