Good Cause: Nonprofit teaches girls in India to value all life

There was a very nice piece in the Naperville Sun last week about Kuldeep Sra and his efforts to help shift the cultural tides that encourage expectant mothers in India to abort female fetuses.  Read the piece below or online for more on the problem and his quite heroic efforts to combat it.  His organization’s web site is here.

And don’t forget: Kuldeep and his son will be our guest speakers at tomorrow night’s Community Forum (7:30 PM Thursday, Naperville Municipal Center).  Why not come and meet them – and congratulate them! – yourself?

Good Cause: Nonprofit teaches girls in India to value all life

Kuldeep Sra and sons

Kuldeep Sra doesn’t care how he gets where he needs to go when he’s in India. He will borrow a bicycle and peddle his way into a village where he will stay at someone’s house. He does it because he wants to help the female population in India, in particular, middle-class girls.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization estimate that more than 11 million female fetuses are aborted in India and China alone. Sra is hoping to change this by educating girls and keeping them from situations where they are forced into selective sex abortions.

“What had an affect on me,” said Sra’s son Randeep, who has traveled with his father to help record his interviews and conversations, “is people know what’s happening in India. People are more aware of the rapes. But if the issues (like female foeticide) aren’t dealt with, the male-female ratio will get worse.”

According to the provisional 2011 Census report released in late March, in the 0 to 6 age group, 914 females are born to 1,000 males, the lowest since Independence, as reported in the Economic Times.

Kuldeep, a retired machinist from Fermilab who lives in Naperville, was aware of the problem in his home country but didn’t realize how serious it was until he saw one particularly disturbing story on television. A female pediatrician said she found a dog devouring a live baby girl outside a village.

“When she told that story,” he said. “I was shocked and cried, but crying alone doesn’t bring changes in society. I tried to join hands with her, but when I couldn’t, I had to start my own organization.”

The nonprofit Dheean Pukardian was created in November 2011 and means “daughter’s outcry.” Kuldeen is personally funding the education of 32 girls in India. He sends them each 500 Indian rupees a month, which is the equivalent to $10 per girl. Most of the girls save the money to use toward college expenses.

“It gives me room in that family to talk and motivate,” he said.

Many of the girls don’t have fathers. Kuldeep, 67, hopes to instill an independence in them; so, when they are pressured to abort a female child, they will refuse to do it. He also is in contact with their teachers and the principals of schools they attend. He wants the girls to be educated on the topic — if they haven’t experienced it already in their families — and have the tools to speak out and help other girls.

The problem stems from the dowry system in India where the bride’s family gives the groom’s family a gift. As income has grown in India so have the demands.

“It takes a lot of courage to do a wedding without a dowry,” said Kuldeep of the pressure for the girl’s family to produce.

The gifts were once things like a sewing machine and then grew to scooters, to a car and now an imported car. By ending pregnancies with female fetuses, the family will feel less stress later when the girl comes of marrying age. The pressure is especially high if a woman has had one female baby and then is pregnant with a second one.

Kuldeep meets with girls in high schools, interviews them, asks them to write essays, and then chooses the girls who will receive the money. Any funds he receives as donations go to the girls. He uses his own money to pay for any trips he makes to India.

Randeep, who is 22 and studying industrial technology at Northern Illinois University, helps his father as much as he can, especially with media-related pieces such as the website.

“We need more organizations like this,” Randeep said. “That’s why I’m glad I am able to help him.”

Slowly but surely they are gaining momentum to help more girls and eventually make bigger change.

“We want to touch as many people as we can,” Kuldeep said. “We have to start somewhere.”