TIHAR HAS BECOME A HAPPENING PLACE: Ritinjali has been named the BEST NGO OF THE YEAR. It's a great feeling. Nira Malhotra was able to invite Mrs. Harkirat Choudhury to teach the Tihar ladies the art of pakaging Diwali Gifts and also how to make colourful gift baskets. Tihar has adopted one such basket design officially. Net covers for glasses and water jugs are being produced. Library, vocational training and free legal aid continue to be provided in Tihar jail Number 5 under the able guidance of Rita Madan and Rekha Purie.

PICNIC FOR NPC AT CHILDREN'S PARK: On August 6, 2003, the Ritinjali team kicked off the monthly picnic programme. Under this programme, Ritinjali organises a picnic each month for the children of one of our four centres. The first picnic was organised for our children from the Nathupur Pahari Centre at the Children's Park at India Gate.
About forty such children were taken in a bus and were served snacks and lunch at the Park. These children have hardly been exposed to such areas in and around Delhi; places that provide an environment that many children their age enjoy everyday. The Park, maintained by Maruti Udyog Limited, is spread over a huge area and contains several swings, see-saws, slides, carousels etc for youngsters to play with besides a carpet of green grass and diverse trees and flowers.

Gen. Kale gave away the prizes and that he also gave a small talk to the children.
The kids had so much fun that it was difficult to get them on the bus even after three hours of frolic. They kept talking about the Park and played antakshari for quite some time after in the bus.

The picnic was planned and successfully supervised by Ritinjali members, staff and volunteers e.g. General (Ret.) Kale, Ms. Gita Nanda, Ms. Dipika Nanjappa, Ms. Rajni Bajaj, Abhishek, Manju and Arun Patnaik.

The Delhi Government invited Ritinjali for a 'Meeting of NGOs for Allotment of Learning Centres for UEE Mission' on September 9, 2003. This was our first meeting after we had submitted the application in June. The Meeting was held at the DIET office, Motibagh and was chaired by Dr. Sanjeev Kumar, Project Manager, UEE Mission, Delhi. There were about 35-40 representatives from various NGOs from South and South-West Delhi as the Meeting had been conducted for these areas only. He informed the representatives that the EGC (Education Guarantee Centres) or the 'Learning Centres' would be for the age group of 6-14 and for Classes I-VIII; The Teaching and Learning Materials would be the same as being taught in the Government Schools at the Elementary Levels and that these materials are easily available in the market at very low prices. There were just three NGO representatives from Southwest district including me; the rest belonged to South Delhi.

We were shown a GIS (geographical Information System) generated map of Southwest district and asked to choose the areas we would like to work in. When I informed the officials that I would like to take up Mahipalpur, Rangpuri Pahari and Kusumpur Pahari, I was told that the first two had been already given to an NGO called Skylife and that they cannot allow us to work in these areas as part of the UEE Mission. With regard to Kusumpur, I was told that nobody had taken it and therefore that can be allotted to Ritinjali. For a moment I was taken aback at the very idea. This was because of two chief reasons-one, because the officials were talking about issuing monopoly certificates to NGOs i.e. if one area (Kshetra---this is the term they use for large portions of land, often running into kilometers and consisting of thousands of people) is allotted to one NGO for running EGS centers under the supervision of UEE Mission, Delhi, no other NGO's work shall be recognized in that particular area by the Mission. That means even if we continue to do our good work in Rangpuri Pahari, the Government will consider it as our organizational endeavour per se and that the UEE Mission, Delhi will have nothing to do with it since Rangpuri Pahari area has been allotted to some other NGO. Two, it meant if we decide to run EGS center(s) at our Kusumpur Pahari Centre, it would require us to get the entire Kusumpur Pahari area allotted to us. Now that would be a very huge commitment, keeping in mind the population of Kusumpur Pahari on the one hand and Ritinjali's resources and infrastructure on the other. But then that's the policy-take it or leave it. This would also debar other NGOs working in the same area of any help from the government.