Meet Meiron Avidan, The Newest Addition to GPM's Team

With the support of the Pears Foundation and the JDC Meiron joined GPM as a year long Development Intern. In September Meiron moved to Palghar, a small town just outside of Mumbai where Gabriel Project Mumbai’s main office is based. Meiron graduated last summer from the University of Southampton with a BSc in Sociology and Social Policy. She loved her studies; they were challenging in all the right ways and helped her to realise that she wanted to work in the nonprofit sector. When deciding what to do after graduating Meiron knew that she wanted to leave the UK for meaningful work rather than travel. 

Her position as the Development Intern at GPM has surpassed her expectations of what she thought she would be doing. Meiron helps with many projects at GPM and has the opportunity to see how the development work happens from behind the scenes as well as in the field. " My day to day schedule includes doing office admin, reviewing HR policies, creating various educational sessions to run in the field, and conducting research for GPM. Essentially, I do a little bit of everything and I really like that!" 

GPM works to engage international visitors with the work we do in India and often large groups of young people will come to work with us for 2-3 week periods. Meiron will be working with these groups of volunteers, orienting them to India, to GPM's activities, and helping them to engage with GPM’s work in a meaningful way.

Meiron is excited to see what the next ten months have in store for her, and we know she will do great things here at GPM!

Meet Ujma Hasmi, Community Health Worker Providing Protein Supplements for Hundreds of Children

Ujma Hasmi, GPM community health worker

Ujma has been working with GPM at Shravan Health Center for eight months. She works in community health outreach, such as the distribution of protein powder in our Love2Learn classes at the Joshua Greenberger Learning Center in Kalwa slums, Mumbai.. 

“When I distribute the protein powder, I feel like the children are my own children – I am very protective of them. I am always very careful to give them the correct quantities and I love seeing the improvements in their health as a result of the powder.” 

Ujma loves working for GPM because she feels the job gives her the ability to give back to her community. She is always offering to take on extra work because she enjoys learning new things. Since starting work she has learnt how to do wound dressings and blood tests. For Ujma the Shravan Health Center “feels like a second home.”  

“The children get excited when they see me coming because they know I am there to give them the protein powder, it tastes like chocolate so the kids enjoy drinking it.” 

Children enjoying nutritional protein drinks

Meet Tejas Dattatray Pawar, Social Worker and Field Coordinator, Building a Brighter Future in the Slums

Meet Tejas, GPM's Field Coordinator in the Kalwa Slum. Tejas has a degree in Social Work, which he uses daily in his work with the community in Kalwa.

"Social work is my passion and I like to work for those who need extra support, GPM provides me with the opportunity to do this. GPM works holistically which is incredibly important when dealing with complex communities. We work to provide the children with good education, nutrition and healthcare and we also empower local women by providing them with employment opportunities. I hope to build and be part of a beautiful society, GPM is working to provide the people in Kalwa with good quality services and financial stability so that everyone has their needs met." 

"This is what I enjoy about GPM the most, you can see the impact of the work we are doing!"

Meet Indu Sona Mane, Masala Mama, and Dreamer

Meet Indu, one of GPM's amazing Masala Mama's cooks, making healthy lunches every day for our Eat2Learn Program students. 

Indu has always been smart. From the time she was little, everyone knew – her teachers, her parents, and the people in her village. But her family, who lived in the village of Sangli, in the Konkan region of Maharashtra, India, had different ideas that did not include investing in girls’ education. They expected her, like all girls, to take care of their families, help with the household, and get married as soon as possible. And so, at the age of roughly 11, like so many of the women, Indu dropped out of school. Her teachers were devastated. One even came to Indu’s house to beg her family to let her stay in school. She offered to let Indu live with her in the next village. But that was considered out of the question. 

Indu still gets angry talking about it, so many years later.Today, Indu, has two children, aged 17 and 19, and she is determined to enable both children, the boy and the girl, to get as much schooling as they want.

Indu, got married at around the age of 17 – relatively late for a girl in her village – in an arranged marriage. Right after her marriage, some twenty years ago, Indu moved to Mumbai. Her husband, whom she had just met, had a job in Mumbai in the food services industry. “I had never been to Mumbai before,” she says, “and I didn’t know what to expect.”

Life in Mumbai is different from life in the village. “In the village, our family would get together regularly and eat,” she recalls with great fondness. “In the city, everyone stays in their own houses and people don’t get together. In the village, we would cook together, and then we would sit together and eat. I miss that experience.”

Indu has many memories of village life, especially visiting neighboring villages for fairs. Even though there are no roads between the villages making the trek challenging, the village fairs were a highlight for her. She especially enjoyed the annual Nag Panchami festival – worshiping the snake god – which takes place every summer. “The men all take a snake and put it around them,” she laughs. “It was a lot of fun.”

She also remembers the food from the festivals, like the puran poli – like sweet chapattis made with gram flour – that everyone looked forward to eating. “It’s a big thing in the village.”

“And when mango season starts, the food becomes very exciting,” she says. “You can eat the pulp with many dishes – puris, chutneys, lassis, and more.”

Indu loves cooking, and she especially enjoys feeding the children. She contributed many recipes to our Masala Mama's cookbook, including carrot halwa, bharwa bindi masala, methi poori, puran poli, pav bhaji, mango lassi, and others. Her favorite recipe is biryani.

“Being with the women is exciting,” she says of the Masala Mama's cooking cooperative. “It is giving us a push. We are proud of that. People are coming to eat our food, to see what we are doing. We can say with pride that our food is good!”

Indu has a dream for a future: She wants to open a food stall in Kalwa in the evenings. But she wants to make sure that all the women are on board first. “Once you join hands with these women, there is no going back,” she says. “There is only moving forward.” But she says she can’t do it alone.

Indu Mane and some of her colleagues at GPm's Masala Mamas women's collective