A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Karen Adler and Butterflies

Karen Adler is a second-year medical student at Cornell University. Karen graduated magna cum laude from Brown University in 1999, then completed an MS in psychology in 2002 in San Diego, CA. Karen’s parents are both immigrants to the US, her father from Hungary, her mother from India. Karen enjoys travel and community service. Her interests in medicine include children’s welfare and international health. Karen has spent a year volunteering with a literacy project for homeless children and families in San Diego. Also, while in San Diego, Karen and a fellow graduate student developed an outreach program where they provided blood pressure screenings and health education to members of African-American communities, as well as forging contacts with community leaders, and encouraging the physician investigators to offer health education and feedback sessions to study volunteers and community members. This summer was her fifth trip to New Delhi, India.

While participating in The Advocacy Project’s 2005 Summer Internship Program, Karen Adler worked with Butterflies in New Delhi, India.

During a brief visit to India last year, Karen began to think seriously about the availability of basic resources for street and working children in Delhi. Upon her return to the United States, she discovered the impressive work that is being done by a small organization called Butterflies.

Founded and run by Rita Panicker, Butterflies is an NGO that has been providing medical services and assistance to working children and children living on the street in New Delhi since 1988. Butterflies bases its altruism on the philosophy of empowerment. In order to receive help from Butterflies, the children must pay a nominal fee to become a member of the organizations. This investment encourages responsibility and good decision-making among the children. The money is then set aside in a bank so that later it can be used by the children to establish a business. Currently, Butterflies has a mobile health unit, four shelters, and reaches over 1,000 street and working children. The organization also promotes awareness about the conditions of street and working children in an effort to inform policymakers and the public at large about the need for wage equality and guaranteeing children’s rights.


Karen with children at the Butterflies crisis center in New Delhi.

Karen engaged in a wide range of projects and duties while working for Butterflies. Her medical background and training were very useful to the Butterflies staff. She accompanied the mobile health unit, helping with the physical examinations of children and the dispensation of medication. She also attended sick and injured children at the twenty-four hour crisis center. Through this experience, Karen learned useful clinical skills and accumulated knowledge that will be pertinent to her future in the medical field.

Drug addiction and substance abuse are intractable problems afflicting many street and working children in New Delhi. Karen headed an undertaking to provide a viable a drug treatment option for some of these children. She designed a program based on the structure of Alcoholics Anonymous and incorporated techniques inspired by Dr. William Miller’s Motivational Interviewing theory. She also made sure that the program included culturally sensitive principles. Finally, Karen helped compile many case studies of children using drugs, and then standardized the format for obtaining the studies.

During her time in India, Karen posted reports online in the form of blogs. In her blogs, Karen has painted a moving portrait of the children she befriended at the Butterflies clinic, discussed her day-to-day activities, and provided more in-depth information the efforts of Butterflies.

• Karen Adler's blog