Greetings from Varanasi, India!

We ended our day yesterday watching two bodies burn by the Ganges. We are in Varanasi, India launching a distribution for 100,000 children. We began the day with an official International Launch event for Operation 20/20. We are now working in 17 countries and last year reached 5.5 million children, lactating mothers and babies. Our goal for 2008 is 7.5 million children. We could easily fulfill that goal in India alone.

We began the day yesterday training 50 nurses and our partners from Us Foundation and Humanity in Unity, Her Holiness Sai Maa's group that is spearheading this distribution with us. Children had been brought in from the slums - so poor, obviously malnourished, with open sores, a couple who had gone blind already (vitamin A deficiency), a newborn with a cleft lip (no folic acid during pregnancy), infections, coughs, skin problems - all the signs of chronic malnutrition. One girl who was 6 years old, you could have sworn she was only a year and a half.

Click Here to Watch Howard and Vitamin Angels in India right now

India is an assault on the senses that  is impossible to describe - the day starts with chanting and bells ringing, blaring out of loudspeakers, incense and urine fill the air, people bath in the Ganges - the same holy river that bodies are thrown in after they burn, and people drink from, traffic is teaming - 2 lane roads become 5 lanes and cars approach in your lane constantly as everyone passes indiscriminately, modern telecommunications are evident and yet the wiring on the streets looks like it is from the 50's and sparks fly out at night - a single pole will have hundreds of wires coming from it as 1/3 of the electricity is stolen, and begging is everywhere - from lepers to young women with babies and empty bottles and elderly women who are pointing at their stomachs and crying for a little food.

The people we work with in India are incredible - they are living in the harshest of environments and their compassion and generosity is boundless. And there is so much work to be done. India and South Asia have the highest numbers of vitamin A deficiency childhood blindness, chronic malnutrition, and deficiency diseases in the world. And the children are still children and so happy to see us - so glad that someone has shown up to help.

Best,
Howard
--
Howard B Schiffer
Founder & President
VITAMIN ANGELS

P.O. Box 42029
Santa Barbara, CA  93140

Ph: 805 564 8400
Fx: 805 564 8499
Web: www.VitaminAngels.org