New GPM Village Kitchen Feeds over 500 Children

As part of the GPM Love2Learn Program in under-served tribal rural villages in India, a new central kitchen was opened in the village of Ashte, Palghar. The kitchen serves 20 surrounding villages (over 500 children) with healthy meals on a daily basis. During the months of January to June, the villages suffer with a severe drought, making food very scarce. Consequently, many of the village residents are malnourished. The children are especially vulnerable to malnutrition, so it is vital that the village has a stable supply of food for the young students.

Children eating the meals that the women prepared for them

Women preparing the food for the young students

The central kitchen in the village was modeled after the GPM central kitchen in the Kalwa slums in Mumbai.The Ashte kitchen provides employment to women who live in the village by hiring them to cook the meals for the children. This kitchen is a place where women can come to talk, laugh, and prepare meals all while receiving a stable salary for the first time. It brings a sense of pride and empowerment to these special women who know that their hard work will keep the village children in school.

The nutrition program supplied by the women in the Ashte kitchen and distributed to 20 village GPM classes is an important way to maintain overall health, increase attendance and cut down of child labor.

A big thanks to our partners Sundara and Humble Smile who support an overall hygiene program for the children in the GPM Love2Learn system; quality nutrition and good hygiene go hand-in-hand to foster good health for 500 children.

Meet the 10 GPM Entwine Summer 2017 Cohort participants

Meet the current GPM-Entwine summer 2017 cohort who are putting a lot of effort and love into their summer volunteering experience in Mumbai. Their different backgrounds, educations, and experiences have allowed each fellow to contribute in a unique manner to the program:

Here is a glimpse into the participants of the current GPM-JDC Entwine volunteer session:

Shoshana Balk

Shosh's passion for Jewish education and community building traces back to her Cincinnati, Ohio

roots, where she and her four sisters were known collectively as "the rabbi's daughters." She has been blessed to turn her passion into a career at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, where she teaches middle school Talmud and Tanach. Shosh graduated from Stern College, where she double majored in Psychology and Jewish Studies. Shosh's most formative experiences have mostly occurred during the summer - as a counselor at Camp Stone and on Counterpoint Israel, the head counselor on the Shaare Zedek Summer Interns Program, and Birthright Israel trip leader, to name a few. She thrives on maintaining creative outlets in her life, with an emphasis on writing and recording music, performing as an acappella singer, and playing piano and guitar.

Sapira Cahana

Sapira is the youngest of  five children. Born in Goteborg, Sweden to a Swedish father and a Texan mother, she spent most of her youth between Toronto and Montreal. Growing up in a rabbinic household, the door was always open to multi-faith travelers with Shabbat as the centerpiece. She has been a passionate disability rights advocate from the age of 4, when she began attending a school for children with special needs and has worked with people with disabilities in school, homes, day centers and camps ever since. She is currently studying Liberal Arts and Third World Studies at Marianopolis College in Montreal with professional aspirations of  going into diplomacy. She is a voracious reader, an avid film buff, a poetry enthusiast, enjoys playing the ukulele, and dancing contemporary dance.

Ezra Felder

Ezra grew up in Providence, Rhode Island and attended Providence Hebrew Day School followed by

Yeshiva of Greater Washington. At YGW,  Ezra was heavily involved in the community, serving as a leader in the Bnei Akiva organization’s youth programming. During high school, Ezra also spent multiple summers volunteering in various communities in Israel, working with at risk youth, recent immigrants, and the elderly. A deep sense of  Zionism and responsibility to the Jewish people then brought him  to Israel, where he studied at Yeshivat Sha’alvim and subsequently served in the Israel Defense Forces as a sharp shooter in the Kfir Brigade. Upon his discharge from the army in 2016, he decided to return to America to pursue his academic career at Yeshiva University, where he is studying Psychology and Economics. When he is not studying, Ezra spends his time tutoring at a local public school, rehearsing for the school play, exploring New York City, reading, playing piano and hanging with friends.

Elianna Isaacs

Growing up, Elianna attended Jewish elementary and high school. She worked as a counselor at Morasha sleep away camp the summer after 11th  grade. The following summer, she worked as a counselor at an orthodox traveling camp called Kanfei Nesharim, through which she traveled to New Zealand, Australia, and Hawaii. She graduated high school a year early and enrolled in Yeshiva University. Following that year, she did a gap year in Israel at a seminary. And during that year, she decided to join  the Israeli army. She has just finished her year and a half  of  service and is currently studying at Hunter College in New York, where she is hoping to become a nurse. Elianna's plan is to return to Israel and make aliyah after her studies.

Rebecca Kornhauser

Rebecca (Geffie) grew up in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania and graduated from Kohelet Yeshiva High

school. She currently attends Yeshiva University, where she is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature with a minor in Biology. Inspired by her small, but vibrant Jewish community, Geffie worked as a counselor at Camp Moshava after high school. Her upbringing also inspired a passion for social justice, which Geffie pursues through her volunteer work with various organizations, including Child Family Health International (CFHI). At  CFHI, Geffie learned traditional and modern medicine from local doctors in Uttarakhand, India, and immersed herself in the culture by living with a host family and attending daily yoga classes. Geffie is also passionate about increasing access to education for underrepresented populations. While studying abroad in Israel, Geffie taught English to Israeli teens from disadvantaged backgrounds and particularly enjoyed reading the imaginative stories that her students wrote. Geffie is currently a volunteer instructor for START  Science, a nonprofit STEM educational organization, where she facilitates science projects for fourth graders from underserved public schools in the Washington Heights neighborhood of  New York City.

Ian Piczenik

Ian recently worked as a Madrich at Yeshiva Darkaynu, a gap year program for boys with developmental disabilities in Israel, where he is pursuing his passion to help make a fundamental difference in the lives of those around him.  Ian loves to relax with friends and has a thriving sense of humor. He also loves to travel. Recently, Ian visited Morocco and has previously travelled across Europe. To further pursue this interest, Ian will be entering University College London in September to study Politics and Eastern European studies. Ian also loves to play sport. Throughout high school, Ian regularly played football with friends. He also raced nationally, culminating in him  running the Jerusalem marathon last year. He ran the marathon to raise money for the Israeli based charity Save a ChildsHeart, a cause very important to Ian and one he spent 3 months volunteering at last year during his first year in Israel.

Chaya Pollak

Chaya is a twenty four year old living in Brooklyn, New York. She received her Bachelor's from

Touro College with a major in speech pathology and a minor in education. She took to continuing education classes in graphic design at the Fashion Institute of Technology and private lessons in fine art. Chaya volunteered at Camp Nageela Midwest was was started by NCSY, in Marshall, Indiana for four summers. There, she worked as an art director and counselor. She also volunteered at camp Simcha, a camp for children with cancer and other blood disorders.

Malka Schnaidman

Malka was born and bred  in New Jersey. She graduated from Ma'ayanot Yeshiva High School at the age of  18 when she left home for Israel. Over the next two years, she continued to study Jewish Philosophy, Theology, and Talmud in an Israeli seminary. She then spent ten months performing national service for an Israeli non-profit that represents the widows and orphans of  the IDF. While there, she also taught music to underprivileged youth at a group home. Now back in the states, Malka is studying Anthropology, Arabic, and Philosophy at NYU. She continues to volunteer in her spare time; she teaches environmental sciences to children at underfunded New York public schools and tutors inmates at Riker's Island

Gabriella Shofet

A child of Jewish Iranian refugees, Gabriella's instilled sense of empathy and resilience has fostered

her passion for healthcare with an emphasis on public health. She has immersed herself in everything from regenerative retinal stem cell research at a world- renowned medical institution at age 17 and has recently interned in a single-roomed ER within an underserved and Ultra-Orthodox Jewish hospital in Israel. In honor of her great grandfather, she became involved in the Youth Movement Against Alzheimer's to raise education and research efforts within her generation. Gabriella currently studies Biopsychology with minors in French and Spanish at the University of California, Santa Barbara. There, she is involved with the Taubman Symposia Interfaith Dialogues surrounding Middle Eastern  topics. Her ambitions include further revealing the intersection between Judaism and science, volunteering in third world countries and underserved communities via a mastery of  languages, and learning how to pass level 836 of  Candy Crush.

Noadia Steinmetz-Silber 

Noadia concluded a year of study and service in Israel and will be attending the University of Chicago in the fall. She grew up in New York City  and spent four years living in Israel as a child. Throughout high school, Noadia spent time after school and on the weekends volunteering (tutoring children in inner-city schools and working with children with special needs). Alongside learning, Noadia spent five months this year working in the English department in a high school in southern Israel and teaching Bedouin women basic Hebrew  skills. Over the past several summers, Noadia split her time between interning in a variety of hospital settings and working with children with special needs, both in Israel and the United States. Noadia is interested in the interplay between human behavior on the individual and social level and plans to study the social sciences and law in college. Through her studies and volunteer experience, Noadia hopes to gain a more nuanced understanding of the human experience and become an advocate for social change.

Mindful India visits Gabriel Project Mumbai

By Dina Wyshogrod and Rachelle Oseran, Minful India

“I am special!  You are special!  We are all special!” roared the grinning children at the end of their yoga class.        

Now, had this just been an exercise in self-esteem for kids, that might have been enough, or, as is written in the Passover Hagaddah, dayenu. 

Meditation with Batia Hofstadter and the children of the Kalwa Slums

But here’s what was really special:   

Chanting right along with the little ones was a bunch of Israeli and Jewish tourists, participants in what has become an annual sightseeing adventure called Mindful India.  And all this was taking place right smack in the teeming slums of Mumbai, courtesy of an amazing program called GabrielProject Mumbai (GPM).

Mindful India is the creation of Dr. Dina Wyshogrod, clinical psychologist and mindfulness expert, and Rachelle Oseran, mindful birthing instructor and yoga teacher.  Since 2009, we have been bringing English-speaking Israelis and like-minded Jewish travelers from around the world to India for a unique experience combining sightseeing, mindfulness, and social action.  We aim for our participants to come away from our trips with indelible memories of India’s architectural and artistic beauty, its majestic panoramas, its spiritual richness, and the warmth and charm of its people.  And, in particular, we hope they will be as inspired as we are, by the growing number of initiatives seeking to propel India steadily forward into a future which guarantees all its citizens equal access to knowledge and education, economic and personal security, and equality and justice. 

This year, our search for just such a local empowerment project led us to the Gabriel Project Mumbai (GPM) in the heart of Mumbai’s Kalva district, and to its visionary leader, Jacob Sztokman.   Jacob was determined to do something for adults and kids whose lives, otherwise, are full of acute poverty-related challenges.  His vision of providing education, healthcare and nourishment for body, mind and soul to this most vulnerable sector of society dovetails with the spirit of mindfulness and the Jewish value of tikkun olam, repairing the world, spurring us to open our hearts and minds to the suffering of others in order to create a better world.   GPM, therefore, was a perfect match for the spirit of our Mindful India trip, and Jacob and his staff were most accommodating in setting up our visit. 

Walking to GPM was a jaw-dropping experience of making our way through acres of waste and debris of every description in every direction.  And while we’d known we’d be seeing some tough stuff, this beggared belief.  I actually hesitate to write these last sentences for fear of turning off some readers.  And that would be a shame, because our visit to Kalva and to GPM was anything but a turn-off.  In fact, it was a highlight of our visit to India. 

For in the midst of filth and poverty, we found an oasis of health, of care, of hope, of possibility.

We discovered the ShravanMedical Clinic, the first of its kind in the Kalva slum.  It services thousands of vulnerable children and their families through burgeoning inoculation programs, health care initiatives, and malnutrition prevention projects.  Sadly, the clinic is named in memory of Shravan Shah, a beautiful, bright, promising 11 year old boy who suddenly fell ill and died before proper diagnosis and treatment could be administered.  He had dreamed of being a doctor. Now his name graces the clinic that saves others’ lives.   

We learned about a cooking project that feeds kids what is often their only hot meal of the day, an enterprise that also empowers the cooks to develop their own catering projects for local events. 

We visited the Sundara SoapProject, an oasis of cleanliness and purity in the midst of that endless garbage dump.  Sundara means “beauty” and this beautiful empowerment project allows local women to build their own cottage industry by purifying and recycling used soap donated by area luxury hotels into new soap bars.  Some of these bars are given to the children along with instructions on hand washing and basic hygiene, teachings that they then can share with their families.  Other bars are processed into a slightly up-scale version with the addition of natural ingredients such as neem, turmeric and eucalyptus and sold to raise funds for the project.    

Deep breathing before a full day of learning

Whenever we visit programs such as GPM, we are on the lookout for how we can be personally involved in their mission in addition to donating funds.  Having learned about the Sundara project while preparing for our trip, we were inspired to collect our own partially used soap bars at each hotel we stayed at along the way and contribute our modest collection to their efforts.  It was a small gesture, to be sure, but it kept their mission uppermost in our minds throughout our travels and enhanced the connection we felt when we actually saw the project in action.  Bringing those recycled soaps home as souvenirs and sharing the story behind them with friends and family reminds us to appreciate the so-called simple things in life and not take anything for granted. 

Another highlight of the visit was meeting and interacting with the children in their classrooms.  We thrilled at their wide-eyed enthusiasm as they recited the days of the week in English, and were moved by the opportunity to teach and practice yoga with them.  It was particularly poignant that we, from the West, were bringing these powerful ancient Indian practices home to India’s own children, so that they might draw on them to bolster their inner resources and cope more effectively with the challenges they face.             

Each experience reinforced the realization of how interconnected we all are, that whenever you give, you also receive.  We came to the slums of Mumbai with the “notion” of the poverty of their existence.  Certainly nobody is downplaying that reality.  However, the kids and workers we met at GPM shared with us the richness of their smiles and the bounty of their optimism, that spark of hope and life that GPM is doing its utmost to fan into a blaze of glorious possibility.  As those little bodies swayed and teetered, finding their balance in “tree pose”, their skinny arms, soaring like branches toward the heavens reminded us that, with the right encouragement and resources, each one of us can indeed reach for the stars.    

So yes:  “I am special!”

   “You are special!”

   “We are all special!”

And:      “GPM:  You are indeed special!”

Dina Wyshogrod, PhD is a licensed clinical and medical psychologist, and Founder and Director of MBSR-ISRAEL, The Israeli Center for Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction.  A native New Yorker, Dina has lived in Jerusalem, Israel since 1991.

 

Rachelle Oseran is a Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP) teacher, a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator and teacher trainer, and a certified yoga instructor. Originally from Zimbabwe, she has lived in Jerusalem, Israel, since 1976.

Together, Dina and Rachelle co-lead annual Mindful India trips (www.mindfultours.net).

A Bat Mitzvah in the slums of Mumbai

Naama Teitel, the 12-year old daughter of Gabriel Project Mumbai(GPM) Board member Gladys Delman Teitel and her husband Greg, decided to dedicate her Bat Mitzvah to the children in the slums of India. In December 2016, Naama and her parents traveled from their home in Connecticut to India. Together, they explored their maternal family roots in the Bene Israel Indian Jewish community and came to Mumbai and volunteered with children in the Kalwa slum through the programs of GPM. Naama taught classes and prepared classroom educational materials for the kids in GPM's Love2Learn classes. She also raised over $2600 for the GPM vaccination program in the Shravan Health Center. “I think that it is very important for children to receive vaccinations because it prevents diseases or even death from occurring,” she wrote on her fundraising page. Her mother, Gladys, wrote about the trip: “It was a life changing experience on so many levels.”

Before leaving for Mumbai, Naama taught her class in the Bi-Cultural Day School (BCDS) in Stamford, CT how to dance the “Macarena”, and she videotaped the group doing the dance. One of the fun activities she did in Kalwa was to teach the kids how to dance the Macarena as well. The video of the two classes – one in Stamford and one in Kalwa – doing the Macarena can be seen here on the GPM YouTube channel. Naama's class at BCDS also created posters about life in Stamford with all their names on them. When Naama came to Kalwa, the children presented her with posters that they

prepared about life in Kalwa with their names on it. The children traded posters as part of a young cultural exchange, and spent time learning about one another. The posters now hang in classes in Stamford and in Kalwa.

This is the second time that the Teitel family decided to celebrate a child’s bat mitzvah with the GPM family in Kalwa. Three years ago, Gladys and Greg travelled with their oldest daughter, Sophie to India, to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah, explore their Bene Israel roots and to spend time in the slums. "The Teitel family visit exemplifies the values of mutual respect and global connectivity that we try so hard to instill with our work,” said GPM Founding Director Jacob Sztokman. “I am so honored and awed by the vision of Gladys, Greg, Naama, Sophie and the whole family. They have enormous hearts and are a model of giving and care that we should all emulate.”