Whilst Googling (as you do), I happened to stumble across a Vellore-based project which, apart from doing some amazing work with people in the tribal hilly areas around Vellore, also had a big interest in the two projects we support at St John's - the orphanage and the village (Shanthigramam). When I say "Vellore based", it works from an office from which a team operate, but it is the family of Sebastian Hunter back in London who helped kick-start the whole operation. If you want to find out more about the Trust, and why and how it was started, do look at http://www.belgraviagallery.com/charity/
We visited the first project completed by the Trust, Seb's School, Senji Mottur, situated about 30kms out of Vellore along some of the more tortuous roads you could imagine! Children in the rural areas have a long way to walk to get to school, and in the tribal areas up to 14-15kms a day - result? Sleepy children who are too tired to learn. This school (with two teachers normally, but just one today) is just a small way in which the Trust is trying to make a difference to people's lives.
Once we got there, we seemed to make a difference to their lives, as chaos broke out, and the children became over-excited by our visit. Fortunately, it was coming up to lunchtime, so they were able to get themselves back to a calmer state for the afternoon's lessons with stomachs lined with rice, to give them ballast for learning to recommence.
Earlier in the morning we spent some time with the Team from Seb's Project - see more about them and the dynamic work they are doing by logging-on to http://www.sebsprojectsindia.org/
We were grateful to Emma Koshi for arranging our visit. Her husband, Tharyan,has been well-known to us for the last six years, as he is deeply involved with the Orphanage. Emma is the team Leader, and she is ably backed-up by the energetic, well-informed and well-motivated Gerri Willcocks, Anup Ravi (Gerri's boyfriend), Mic, Fionn & Laura, Sampath and others, We agreed that we had learnt more about the infrastructure of today's India from these folk than we had during previous visits over the last 12 years.
Tomorrow - The Orphanage again.A very full day. A good night's sleep awaits us on Tuesday night.
We visited the first project completed by the Trust, Seb's School, Senji Mottur, situated about 30kms out of Vellore along some of the more tortuous roads you could imagine! Children in the rural areas have a long way to walk to get to school, and in the tribal areas up to 14-15kms a day - result? Sleepy children who are too tired to learn. This school (with two teachers normally, but just one today) is just a small way in which the Trust is trying to make a difference to people's lives.
Once we got there, we seemed to make a difference to their lives, as chaos broke out, and the children became over-excited by our visit. Fortunately, it was coming up to lunchtime, so they were able to get themselves back to a calmer state for the afternoon's lessons with stomachs lined with rice, to give them ballast for learning to recommence.
Earlier in the morning we spent some time with the Team from Seb's Project - see more about them and the dynamic work they are doing by logging-on to http://www.sebsprojectsindia.org/
We were grateful to Emma Koshi for arranging our visit. Her husband, Tharyan,has been well-known to us for the last six years, as he is deeply involved with the Orphanage. Emma is the team Leader, and she is ably backed-up by the energetic, well-informed and well-motivated Gerri Willcocks, Anup Ravi (Gerri's boyfriend), Mic, Fionn & Laura, Sampath and others, We agreed that we had learnt more about the infrastructure of today's India from these folk than we had during previous visits over the last 12 years.
Tomorrow - The Orphanage again.A very full day. A good night's sleep awaits us on Tuesday night.
No comments:
Post a Comment