January 21, 2001 - Ways that you can help.
January 21, 2001 - Ways that you can help. |
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How To Help! What the kids need most is your time. If you are planning a trip to India, please include a trip to Madras in your itinerary... and spend time with the kids. Your time is what the kids need most. |
Sending Money If you cannot visit the kids and spent time with them, you can send them money. Each kids needs about $40 for food each month. I can only afford about $30 each per month for five of the six kids. |
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Currently there are two wants to send money which seem to work. 1. Money Gram Money Grams work very well in some cases. The problem is getting the information to the kids. Mail is very slow. So far, e-mail works but it is easy for someone else to get the messages. 2. Wire Transfer You can wire money to a correspondent bank in the USA. Mari has a friend who has a bank which has a correspondent bank in the USA... and their bank manager give me all the necessary codes. However, there are many fees taken by the bank. It took me two years to find some successful method of getting money to them. Even so, I am not sure how much longer this method will work so I always keep trying new methods. I can give you all the information if you e-mail me at robert_purser@usa.com or puppet@jps.net. Any help will be appreciated. |
Do Not Do This Be careful not do any of the following: 1. Send money in the mail. 2. Send a bank draft by mail. 3. Send a Western Union Wire to kids who do not have passports 4. Send any package... except by FedEx. |
Why Is It So Difficult? Why is sending money to India so difficult. One reason is the national pastime in India is trying to steal things so no one wants to do business with India. The USA post office refuses to sell a money order for India. Western Union requires that the person receiving the money have a passport which eliminates most of the kids. (So far, Mari and Kumar have now have passports.) Indian banks will not accept checks... ever! Some Western banks will issue Demand Drafts (not my bank though) which take 12 to 14 days to clear... after it reaches India at all. Even drafts issued in India by the same bank require a week or more to clear. The problem is getting the draft to the kids. Importing of rupees to India is illegal. Indian currency cannot be exchanged in any countries outside of India. About 20% all mail from the west is searched... specially registered mail. Once the workers at the post office know that you send things which are valuable they will open all your mail. That means if you send the kids money in an envelope, after about five times, the postal workers will realize that you are sending them money and from then on, none of the money will be in the envelope when it arrives. I was able to send money via Federal Express but this is very expensive (and illegal) and once someone discovers that there is money inside any of the Federal Express envelopes, they will all be opened and searched. In India, you cannot even ship packages outside the country without sewing lessons. All packages must be sewn in cloth. |
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