Most of us must be planning to celebrate the festival of lights with our families and loved ones. But, not for these girls.
For them, the past few years have been a constant struggle, from the scars of what they had to suffer in their 'own country' Pakistan. They were forced to leave their home behind and are now trying to rebuild their lives in a different country, living in a camp, in shelters that hardly qualifies to be called a house.
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These are the children of Pakistani Hindus who were forced to flee their country due to religious persecution and are now living in Delhi- their new home.?
For the first time, these girls have planned to do something to celebrate Diwali.
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For nearly a week these girls living in the refugee camp in Delhi's Majnu Ka Tila have been making diyas for Diwali.
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The girls have been making different kinds of diyas which will be then sold for a fundraiser for them.
The simple yet beautiful diyas made of glass and gel costs from Rs 30 to Rs 100.
The initiative is the brainchild of Humanitarian Aid International (HAI) a Delhi-based NGO.
Sudhanshu Singh the founder of the charity who has decades of work experience in disaster relief in the international stage brought his expertise in working with refugees.
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"It is easy for anyone to provide handouts or temporary aid for the displaced people, but the challenge is to make them self-reliant and make them stand on their own feet economically. That is what we wanted to do here," Singh explained the idea.
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The idea of making Diyas was put forward by Akanksha Sharma a Delhi Government official who also volunteers with the charity during her non-working hours.
"It was a joint initiative of mine and HAI, as soon as I proposed this, everyone was on board with the idea and we started working on this. Our idea was to empower the girls financially. Since these girls are not familiar with these kind of things, initially we wanted to start with small things, and since it is the season of Diwali we came up with the idea of Diyas," Akanksha Sharma said.
Some ten girls were then given training in Diya making by a professional trainer who is still overseeing the production. And under her guidance, the girls have been working for more than a week now and are?making more than a hundred diya every day.
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The diayas are already a hit even before they are available in the market. According to the organizers, almost all the diyas made by the girls have been sold or have been booked by wellwishers.?
"HAI will buy back all the diyas made by these girls and whatever money we will be getting from it will be given to the girls. Since we cannot sell them, we will be gifting these as a token of appreciation to our wellwishers," Sharma said.
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The girls have also been invited to put up a stall at the HCL Foundation, additionally, they are also planning to put up a stall in the refugee camp itself where the general public can buy them.
For Ramgouri, a Class V dropout making the diyas was the best thing that she has done and wants to carry it forward even after Diwali.?
"We begin with boiling the gel, which is then filled in the glass diyas. And before the gel cools down we insert the wick and let it cool down for some hours. Once the gel in the diyas have cooled down we wrap it in polythene and place them in the cartons," Draupata another girl who is making the Diwali diyas narrated the process.
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"Vocational training like this is the key to make them self-reliant. Since most of them back in Pakistan were farmers and cannot do the same here or even for that matter cannot work legally we had to come up with something to give them a supplementary income. This is also an opportunity to help them integrate to the Indian society. We have a couple of more such programmes planned for them like candle making. The girls will be making candles and other gift items for Christmas Gradually we want to register them as a cooperative and give it a formal structure," Singh explained how they plan to take the initiative forward.
He also explained how the vocational training have helped the girls.
"These girls come from a highly conservative society like Pakistan where they had no dreams about the future. If you ask them earlier about what they want to do in their future, they would probably say we will get married, have kids, and that is it. But now they have started having dreams about a bright future, they want to financially contribute to their families. Seeing how the girls can be economically productive to the families, even male members of the family are welcoming this," Singh said.?