Napa Valley hails Dr. Kiran Martin: Bringing power to the people in India's slums'

St. Helena Star

After graduating from medical school in India, if pediatrician Kiran Martin had the same objectives as some of her fellow students, she might now have a lucrative practice in the United States.

That would put her among a significant 5 percent of India-educated physicians in the American professional medical network.

The 15 percent representation by Indians in the U.S. engineering ranks is even more noteworthy.

But there is a far more attention-getting number: A staggering statistic, if you will. It's the 70 percent of India's population who live below the international poverty line. Because India has a billion people, that works out to be more people than live in the United States.

It is with this group that Dr. Martin identifies. Why? Because she thinks that with a little help from the rest of the world she can change it. She has been inching toward that distant goal for the last two decades.

“Twenty-five percent of the people in every city in India live in slums,” Dr. Martin told a gathering in her honor at Alpha Omega Winery on Sept. 20. “I believe that slum children â€" if given the right input and the right motivation â€" could also become doctors and engineers.”

And so, indeed, through the application of Martin's programs, thousands of youngsters in the 45 slums in which she works have undergone career counseling and taken their first tentative steps on career paths in such highly cognitive fields as computer programing, engineering, and multimedia design. With leveraged loans from local banks, some are enrolled in colleges.

The number of slum people Martin is helping has grown to 350,000, a creditable amount, and yet, sadly, she knows only a microcosm of those who need help.

‘Mother Teresa of New Delhi'

After 20 years in the slums, she has seen enough poverty, misery and hopelessness to last â€" indeed ruin â€" a lifetime. But, at age 49, Martin remains energetic about her work.

Some have called her the “Mother Teresa of New Delhi,” India's capital city. But Martin will have none of that.

“No, no, no. I can't be compared to her,” she demurs. “She had a wonderful sense of God and she did so much for this world.”

Nevertheless, there is something almost miraculous in the way this angel of mercy with a stethoscope leverages routine donations into astronomical sums to aid her legions of the poor.

“She's been raising funds in the Napa Valley since 2000,” said Kailash C. Chaudhary, owner of a Napa civil engineering firm who underwrites her annual visits to this region. “Overall, she's raised more than a quarter-million here, which she parlayed into $2.5 million. Then, she turned that $2.5 into $5 million.”

The money, she acknowledges, goes a long way.

“I'm able to leverage from the government,” she said. “The government has money, and I can get them to spend it if I spend a little bit of money.”

Networking needed

Dr. Martin's fundraising venue in the United States is ASHA, the American Society for Health for All. The acronym is also a word meaning “hope” in India.

Her annual trips to the Napa Valley are among the three she regularly makes to the U.S. each year and resulted from a diplomatic meeting made to India in 1999 by Congressman Mike Thompson, his wife Jan, and Senator Richard Gephardt. Jan Thompson, a registered nurse, suggested meeting with Martin after hearing about her work. A relationship sprang from that and the Thompsons have become hosts of the fundraising event at Alpha Omega, where the fundraiser for Martin has been held the last three years.

“I love Mike and Jan and I love coming here,” Martin said.

Still, Chaudhary noted, U.S. contributions lag behind those made by those in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

“Maybe I need to do some more networking here,” said Martin. “Maybe if I came here more often and met more people I would be able to raise more money.”

Herded like sheep

The form of aid that she renders is unique â€" ingenious.

“She is empowering people within the slums. She is helping people help themselves,” posited Chaudhary. “She does not have a dole-out program.”

But making the great mass of poor and downtrodden in India comprehend that in their sheer numbers they have the power to influence changes that would improve their quality of life is next to impossible.

“They don't understand their power,” Martin explained. “They don't understand that if they apply their minds politicians would be scared of them. So they are herded like sheep to the polling booths. But in our slums the politicians know they can't do that. The people there are empowered, they understand everything. They can never be herded around again.”

Martin's program includes teaching people who formerly begged in the street how to create a cottage industry selling their artifacts and managing money. Women are taught how to be midwives, largely because government hospitals in India are in sad condition and have no competent staffing for prenatal care or anything similar.

“When I first started we gave IV fluids on the streets because there were so many dehydrated people,” said Martin. “We warned them, ‘You do not want to go to a government hospital because you will die there.'”

When she graduated from medical school, she went to work in a government hospital for two years “because I wanted to get lots of experience.”

Volunteer in slums

She began working with the people in the slums while still in college.

“I would go as a volunteer,” said Martin. “All my friends (classmates) wanted to go to the Middle East, wanted to go to the U.S, wanted to go to the U.K., wanted to become rich.”

What she learned from her college years was how really horrifying slum conditions were. As an example, in many slums rivulets of raw sewage flow through the area.

“I saw five children lying on one bed and I saw children who are crying and no one is coming to them,” said Martin. “The worst I saw was children eating excrement. They are sick â€" seriously sick â€" because of this.”

But children have fared better in slums where Martin works. As an example, not one child has died from diarrhea for the last three years.

Helping where no one else will

What do affluent Indians do to relieve the poverty?

“Very little; not much at all,” Martin sighed. “They believe they are from a higher (strata) and they (slum people) are from a lower (strata) and this is their fate. They say ‘This is how they were born to be and we can't do anything about it,' and they shut their eyes. They see poverty every day â€" they can see it from across the road â€" but they do nothing about it.

“It makes me sad, but I feel that instead of being angry I should encourage them,” she added. “I should bring them to the slums and say, ‘Look! Change is helping them, vaccinations are helping them.' I have brought politicians over, I have brought schools over, I have brought all kinds of people. I tell them, ‘You have to come and see what's possible,' and they do listen.”

Martin drew a warm response from the group at Alpha Omega as she described how the number of people she is aiding has grown â€" by 75,000 this past year as people in neighboring slums noticed the improved conditions resulting from what she was doing and asked her for assistance.

Martin drew more applause from the crowd when she said, “I just want to come back next year and tell you we are working with hundreds and hundreds more,”

What's kept her going?

It almost sounds like an echo of Mother Teresa: “First of all I have come to realize that even if everyone is not on their side God is on their side,” she said. “I think God really loves them; he cares for them and I feel like I am strength in his hands.”