Dear Friends,
Remember the picture I posted recently of welders perched on a roof under renovation. That house belongs to a 70 year old widow.
It was built more than forty years ago by her husband, who passed away some years later, leaving her with three little sons to care for. She struggled and brought them up, and all three of them became drivers. They got married and the two younger boys moved out with their wives, leaving the widow under the care of her eldest son, employed as a truck driver.
He worked hard and gathered enough money to rebuild their old house. Then he fell ill, got admitted for a long and expensive treatment, draining away all his savings. His wife and kids went away to her place, forcing the widow to take care of him. His brothers, both ailing, were of no help.
That’s when the widow approached us through the Panchayat member, requesting for help to fund her son’s treatment.
I visited her, had a look at his medical papers, and found that his condition was rather grave. A chat with his doctor confirmed that he had multiple problems, with very little hope for survival.
So, we discussed the case with the Panchayat member, and decided that it would be better to re-roof the leaky old house, so that the widow could have a proper shelter after her son left her.
Then we got on to finding the required funds. We approached Peach Foundation, a charitable trust run by Mr Roy Peter, to remember his late parents. Roy is also an old student of our Sainik School, and he immediately gave us most of the funds required.
We took up the work on the widow’s house and replaced the old and leaky asbestos and clay tile roofing with Metaroof sheets fixed on steel square pipes (in place of old wooden frame).
We are now left with some minor repairs and painting of the house, which we will take up as soon as this unexpected spell of rain gets over.
Sadly, the widow will be moving into the refurbished house all alone, as her son has succumbed to his ailments.