While other families head out for movies or holidays, Gayathri Shankar’s family spends the days before Diwali in the kitchen, stirring pots of payasam and rolling gulab jamun doughs for more than 150 underprivileged children. It is a tradition she has kept for nine years as a volunteer with the non-profit CommuniTREE’s ‘Diwali with the Darlings’ initiative.“It brings the family together before the festival,” says Gayathri. “The elders help pack the sweets, my husband and mother help prepare them.” Two years ago, the family visited an Irular village in Mamallapuram and prepared sweets there with the community. “It made my 12-year-old son more empathetic of those around him. He learned about privilege. His teachers tell me that he’s always helping his classmates when they are ill.”Gayathri is one of many Chennaiites and NGOs working to make Diwali brighter for those often left out of it. They gift children custom made clothes inspired by their favourite stars and spend time with mentally-ill women, who have never celebrated the festival before.‘Diwali with Darlings’ is the brainchild of environmental activist Hafiz Khan, who started it in 2011. The initiative is active in four villages in Chennai, including Mahabalipuram, Kovalam and Oragadam, where the organisation collaborates with govt schools to distribute sweets. “Back in the day, people used to make sweets at their home which has been replaced by store-bought variant that take away the bonding. We wanted to preserve those traditions while sharing the happiness with underprivileged children,” says Hafiz.Hafiz and his group of volunteers are aiming to make 5,000 pieces of sweets this year and will be donating them and a few noiseless crackers on Nov 5.Meanwhile Chennai-based NGO Udhavum Ullangal Public Charitable Trust, which has been working with underserved communities for more than 29 years, has stitched more than 1,000 outfits for children from these communities from Chennai, Tirunelveli, and Sivakasi as part of their ‘Anandha Deepavali’ initiative this year. What makes this project special is the custom tailoring and designing of these clothes based on what the children ask for, says Sankar Mahadevan, founder.“The children are very particular about what they want, especially the boys. They give costume references from movies of chief minister C Joseph Vijay and actor Sivakarthikeyan, and our skill development centre students make them,” he says.These clothes are distributed to orphanages, homes for special children, and homes for people with disabilities and visually impaired children. While the programme earlier expanded its outreach to street children, over time, it became difficult to organise them. Since its operations began in 1998, Udhavum Ullangal has made more than 35,000 sets of clothes for children.The children are also provided with accessories such as necklaces, earrings and bracelets made by the women trained under the skill development programme to go with the outfits.Most often, women with mental illness are neglected during festivals, says Vanitha Rengaraj, founder of Sharanalayam, an NGO that works with the destitute and mentally ill women. For the first time, more than 150 residents celebrated Diwali on Saturday, with dancing and singing, followed by fireworks.“We never celebrated Diwali on the premises and kept them safe because we were worried they might get frightened or overwhelmed by the noise. But this time, we thought we’d give it a try because many of them miss their families during festivals,” says Vanitha.The NGO wanted to offer the women some sense of normalcy and invited kind-hearted people and those willing to support them and cheer them and celebrate with them.
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