In 2009, KBF has decided that we will support an amazing organization in Bhopal, India, the Sambhavna Clinic.  This health clinic gives free medical treatment to people in Bhopal who are suffering from the terrible gas leak from a factory run by the company called Union Carbide. The disaster occurred on the night of December 3rd, 1984, as a Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India, began leaking 27 tons of the deadly gas methyl isocyanate. Thousands of people have died since this industrial disaster, and many are dying even now as the result of the gas leak. It is considered the world's worst industrial disaster, and KBF wants to help!

"Today, well over 120,000 chronically ill survivors are in desperate need of medical attention and an estimated 10 to 15 people are dying every month from exposure-related illnesses. While official figures report well over 5000 deaths attributable to exposure, a government agency – the Centre for Rehabilitation Studies in Bhopal – reports 2165 deaths attributable to toxic exposure in the year 1997 alone. Unofficial and more correct estimates place the current death toll at over 20,000." (Except from Sambhavna's website, www.bhopal.org)

Kids for a Better Future thinks that right now would be a wonderful time to support the Sambhavna Clinic for more that one reason;

• 2009 is the 25th anniversary of the disaster, and the Sambhavna Clinic will be part of  a year-long campaign to advocate for the rights of the gas victims of Bhopal. 
• As part of the campaign, leaders of Sambhavna and community members  from Bhopal are planning to come to the United States to demand that Union Carbide (now owned by Dow) clean up the toxic waste which is still lying in huge heaps at the site of the factory. 
• Akash and Gautama and their family spent a week doing volunteer work at the clinic last December, and met with children who are victims of the Bhopal tragedy who have organized themselves and are doing amazing work for their own cause.

We are also spending the year doing campaign work for the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal. This includes fundraisers and generally raising awareness about the issue, as well as our usual walkathon (pictures) in May.

We were inspired by the Bhopali child activists' "Hearts Campaign," which was where they cut out hundreds of paper hearts and presented them to the Indian government, saying, "You seem to have no heart, so here, we are giving you our own." We, KBF, are doing the same thing, and giving our hearts on behalf of the children of Bhopal to Dow Chemical.

The money we have already raised for the Sambhavna Clinic will go to building a children's playground inside the clinic, and any new donations will go towards children's health care.