Unique Home For Girls

Unique Home for Girls is a home for unwanted, abandoned girls in Punjab, India. Due to many cultural and economic reasons (dowry, daughters thought of as consumers and sons as producers, potential conflict over property division, continuation of family line, to name but a few ) boys are regarded as the preferred sex and consequently female foeticide and infanticide is often the chosen path for women who feel they have no alternative. You would think education and awareness would put an end to these practices but unfortunately not. The statistics speak for themselves and in fact the rate of female foeticide is higher in urban, affluent areas then rural, poverty stricken regions. 274 girls die every day in Punjab before they are born. (Source: The Missing Girls, 2011)

Unique Home for Girls provides a safe haven for those that are fortunate enough not to be killed before or at birth. The home has one simple aim: to give these abandoned girls back their lives through education and love.

Prakash Kaur, is the remarkable Sikh woman behind the home. Abandoned as a baby herself over 60 years ago, she opened the home in 1993 under the trust name of Bhai Ghanayya Ji Charitable Trust. She was inspired by the selfless service of Bhai Ghanayya Ji, a devout Sikh of Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji, who in his desire to help and serve while on the battlefield after a war did not discriminate between soldiers belonging to the Sikh or the enemy Mughal armies. She has worked tirelessly to provide endless love and care to the 60 girls in the Home, who range from just a few weeks old to young adults.

What Bibi Prakash Kaur has achieved is testament to the power of vision, hard work, commitment and resilience. There is much we can learn from her as we live our lives and run our businesses. The power is in taking action, not sitting back and thinking ‘one day’ but in the doing right now and making a difference.

The Home is supported by ‘UK Friends of Unique Home (Punjab)’, a UK Registered Charity (Charity No. 1127531) solely based in UK with their primary purpose being to raise funds here to assist the Home with the construction of their new premises. Although there were pockets of volunteers supporting the Home in the UK, their efforts were coordinated and legitimatised with the registering of the charity by Ranjit Thaliwal, Partner at Thaliwal Bridge Solicitors, Leicester who has been supporting the Home for 8 years.

I became aware of their work recently and reached out to Ranjit to see how they could be supported further.”Awareness and funds are needed”, he said and in the spirit of taking action I have organised a sky dive with 3 other willing volunteers to raise the aforementioned funds and awareness! Our aim is to reach £2,000 . I now ask you to take action and sponsor us. We have covered the cost of the dive personally and all funds raised will go directly to the Home:

http://www.justgiving.com/jump4unique

Before signing off, I wanted to share a great quote from Sri Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of the Sikh faith

“We are born of woman, we are conceived in the womb of woman, we are engaged and married to woman.

We make friendship with woman and the lineage continued because of woman.

When one woman dies, we take another one, we are bound with the world through woman.

Why should we talk ill of her, who gives birth to kings?’.

To learn more about Unique Home, visit: http://uniquehomeforgirls.co.uk

 

Rupinder Kaur, is a Business and Career Coach working with women in business, either professionals or entrepreneurs who are frustrated that their career or business is not growing at the same rate as their ambition. She helps them achieve this progress quicker than if they were working alone, by identifying the current issues that are restricting their development and the solutions that will overcome them. For more info visit:

Website: http://www.rkcoaching.co.uk
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rkcoaching
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rupinderkaurcoaching
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/rupinderkaurcoaching

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