Sahara Aalhad

I know it’s been a long time coming, but now is as good a time as ever for a post about the NGO that Bub and I work at. We’ve also had sufficient enough time there to give a pretty accurate description of what they are all about.

Sahara Aalhad has been working in Pune since 1998 and is an offshoot of the original Sahara House in Delhi which started in 1978. Sahara Aalhad has been in three different locations in Pune before finally settling about 10km out of the main city. This was because when a neighborhood would find out that they were working with HIV positive people they would kick them out. There are four major projects run by Sahara. The first is the care home itself that has a capacity of about 40 people and is staffed by only one full-time nurse. The other staff at Sahara; caretakers, cooks, accountant, project managers are about 15 people. Ninety percent of them are former patients of Sahara, either HIV patients or drug rehab patients. Currently there are about 17 patients living at Sahara.

The second project run by Sahara is a truckstop awareness program. There are about 18 different truckstops that a staff of about 5 people go to to facilitate awareness sessions, on the spot HIV testing, counseling sessions, and condom distribution. They have identified truck drivers as being an especially high risk population because of their frequent dealing with sex workers.

The third project of Sahara is a drug therapy center about 20km from Pune in a slum in Pimpri. The program is only a few years old and operates out of a small, tin-roof shed about 15ft by 25ft. The program’s main focus is to prevent intravenous drug users from injecting and instead provide them with a government subsidized replacement drug that gives them the same high. The idea here is that these drug users don’t have to pool all their money into buying drugs and that taking the drugs orally will eliminate the risks of infection associated with intravenous drugs.

The last project of Sahara is a program called IGP, income generating project. Trainers are brought in from outside to teach some of the patients at Sahara how to make handicrafts like bags, shawls, books, cards and jewelry. The director of Sahara just opened a store, today in-fact, that sells these products exclusively. These products are amazing and of very high quality and character.

The main things that Bub and I have been helping with is with the office work. So far we’ve done everything from helping with fundraising to writing grants for a the care home and a potential women’s shelter they want to start. No word yet on if those grants have been accepted yet or not, but we’re still crossing our fingers. The experience has been very positive for us. We’ve met so many amazing people from Sahara and from working with Sahara’s partners in Pune.

And some pictures…

These are some of the drug rehab patients playing carrom. Bub and I were able to play with them and hold our own, though the patients that were playing were pretty high on the replacement drugs so…

Here is a picture of Sahara Aalhad. We took this picture for a brochure that we put together for Sahara recently. The building is tucked well enough back from the main road. It takes Bub and I about an hour to get there everyday from home with a 40 min walk and a 20 min six-seater rickshaw ride.

This is Bolla, one of the little boys that lives at Sahara. Him and his mother live at Sahara along with his little 1-month old brother. Bolla LOVED the camera I had and insisted on posing a few more times for pictures. He is very inquisitive, has a lot of energy and loves to do just about anything with Bub and I.