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Hooked on helping the 'slumdogs'
The hit film Slumdog Millionaire opened a window on to abject child poverty in India but according to Leeds health workers Pat Kellett and Catherine Boak, the reality is far worse. Neil Hudson met them
Pat Kellett's grandfather, Robert Hornsby, made Gandhi's glasses.
It's a fact the 52-year-old Leeds midwife and health worker, who has just returned from her fourth trip to the sub-continent, revealed in passing toward the end of our interview.
"He worked for Lawrence and Mayo and he would go out there for six months at a time. I've still got some of the letter he wrote home. It's all frontier stuff. He talks about fording a river and how they lost a wheel doing it. In fact, the picture of Gandhi on the 100 rupee note shows him wearing glasses made by my grandfather."
Pat has been to India four times, three of those with workmate Catherine Boak, 51, who became interested in the charity work through her daughter.
Historical connections aside, why would two Leeds mums with successful careers decide to spend their holidays from work travelling to India to help impoverished children?
Pat said: "I went on holiday to Anjuna and saw a stall about this street rescue charity, El-Shaddai. At the time I was still suffering culture shock because of the poverty. I couldn't believe the conditions. My first reaction was to go home."
Perhaps one of the most shocking aspects of Slumdog Millionaire were the scenes in which young children were deliberately blinded, so they would make better beggars. According to Pat and Catherine, such mutilations are commonplace.
Pat said: "I can remember on our last night in India, Catherine and myself wanted to treat ourselves to a luxury hotel, so we could have a shower. I was standing looking out over the city and I could see this rooftop with all these bags on it. Slowly, over the course of the night, these poor, mutilated people emerged from them. They all had limbs cut off – I mean deliberately amputated – and were basically going begging.
"Another time we were at the Taj Mahal one day and we saw this van pull up and four adult men were booted out of it and they all had begging sticks tied to their stumps. They were out in the sun all day."
She added: "I think we also do it because we can see the differences we are making, however small they are. I sponsor a child called Santosh, who was a very unhappy young man when I first met him but now goes to school and the difference in him is amazing. He now goes to school and is much happier.
"We are desperate for things like toys – beach toys, cricket bats, balls and skipping ropes. If anyone can donate any of these, it would make such a difference."
The pair plan to set up a UK-arm of the charity.
Simple things can mean so much
Catherine Boak's association with India came about through her daughter, Gillian Cumming, 29.
She said: "My daughter had been travelling round the world and I arranged to meet her in Bangalore and we ended up helping homeless people. When I came back to this country I met Pat in Wetherby and heard she was going out there. I asked if she wanted some company and that's how it started. Now, it's in our blood.
"I think we've continued with it because, even though we are not solving the problems, it's a start. We have made a difference to so many children already. The El-Shaddai charity started with two children being washed and changed in a shop front."
Together Pat and Catherine have helped set up school rooms, walking busses to schools, helped rid children of head lice and made sure they get properly washed and fed.
Catherine continued: "Once you have seen these kids, you're hooked. They have so little, but are so rich inside. Whereas here, everyone has so much by comparison.
"The thing about begging is that it's so profitable for them. Because tourists are so compassionate, they will give 100 rupees to a child, which is about 70p, so it's nothing to them but that's a lot of money out there. You can buy a bottle of Old Monk rum for about 100 rupees. That's another problem out there, everyone has a habit. We try to get tourists to give soap and towels, or food, instead.
"Just simple things can mean so much out there. We went to work with children at an orphanage and just giving them a wash and a cuddle – a simple thing like that – meant so much to them, because they've never had that kind of contact before. They crave it. They would be lining up to get dried so they could get a cuddle."
She added: "I would like to see something being set up in this country so we could move the work forward even more.
"Many of the children out there are just used for begging, even by their parents. They do not have that link with them, like we do. If they are begging and someone gives them some money, they are normally being watched and they will have it taken off them straight away.
"You even see two-year-olds begging on the beach. Here you wouldn't let a child of that age go more than 10 yards but out there they are just out there on their own."
The pair, who work for NHS Leeds, plan to return to India in November. Contact: patkellett@hotmail.co.uk or catherine_boak@hotmail.co.uk.
neil.hudson@ypn.co.uk
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