Lotus Flower Trust’s Founder and CEO John Hunt first met Bharti eleven years ago when she was a destitute nine-year-old and living in a small, one-roomed refuge for 20 children with special needs and disabilities. She was writing Sanskrit with a pen held between the stumps of her arms and her chest.
The Lotus Flower Trust, founded in 2008, builds schools and homes for destitute children in remote areas of India. We were asked to build these children a residential home. This has been achieved with the fantastic help of William Grant Whisky, Women in Travel Retail and Delhi Duty Free. It is a shining light in the northern State of Uttrakhand and held up as an example to all.
Bharti has always been an outstanding student with her dogged strength tackling life with no arms. She lost her forearms when trying to help her father, a drunken and aggressive grass cutter, who cut grass close to Corbett National Park the Tiger Reserve. She was using a sickle when a spark, caused by the knife hitting a stone, flew into a mound of wheat chaff, setting off a ball of dynamite that had been put there to chase away wild boar and pigs (they bite into the dynamite causing it to explode killing the animals). The resulting explosion blew off both Bharti’s forearms just below the elbow. At the age of 10 we were able to organise prosthetic arms for Bharti from Vadodra Children’s Hospital, which she wore for a while, but found them too heavy and cumbersome to be helpful.
Bharti is always up for a challenge. Now a woman of 20, she has learnt to paint and use a sewing machine. She has also taken on the responsibility for other children with disabilities with whom she lives. Bharti has even persuaded Tara, wheelchair bound, to walk unaided, completely changing her life. She has learnt to speak good English and passed her exams at the local Higher Secondary College.
Bharti has recently won a scholarship to the Arts College in Almora - quite an achievement for this village girl! But she now needs arms in order to progress her work. Bharti has approached LFT, pleading for our help to get her fitted with modern prosthetic arms and hands. Can you help her?
