FUNDS CRUNCH HITS NGO’S ORISSA PROJECT

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1000513/the_east.htm

FUNDS CRUNCH HITS NGO’S ORISSA PROJECT FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT Bhubaneswar, May 12 When Milton McCann set up 11 schools in Kalahandi in 1986, he had only one dream — to provide food and education to impoverished tribal children and help them shape a future vastly different from that of their fathers.Eleven years later, McCann’s dream lay shattered when he had to close down these schools due to paucity of funds.“It was something terrible and very difficult to come to terms with. How can you slam the door on these unfortunate children?” says the Calcutta-based social worker, who was named “Member, Order of the British Empire”, for his work among the poor, especially street children.McCann had to “pack up and leave” in 1997 because foreign funds stopped coming. “I was very sad to leave, but I had no other alternative,” says the 68-year-old secretary of the Usthi Foundation, an organisation he set up in collaboration with a Swiss couple in 1977.Impressed by his work, former chief minister Biju Patnaik gave him 200 acres of land in the Bhawanipatna and Lanjigarh blocks of Kalahandi district.Before he left Kalahandi “for good” three years ago, McCann returned the land in his possession to the state government and asked another Christian organisation to carry on the work. McCann is now focusing on cyclone relief in Orissa. He said the Usthi Foundation was also running a hospital for tribals in Keonjhar district.But the social worker is worried that funds will dry up. “I need money to run schools and hospitals. I do not want to relive the Kalahandi experience again,” he said. To generate funds, McCann plans to open a diagnostic centre in Bhubaneswar soon.