Nepal - Piya

 

Hi Don,

 

Sorry for the delay in communicating.....due to virus infected in my entire computer system and had difficult time.

Meanwhile, few happy pictures for you ..... one is our nanny goat and two beautiful babies.  the other picture of the rechargeable light for our children ...now they have enough light for their studies during no light time.  I chaged my mind buying candles as candles will just burn and it is not  long term effect.  There is danger for our princesses as sometime by mistake it can bring disaster of burning the place... we have some cases as people sleep while burning candles and mistakenly candles burn the cloths and finally put on fire. 

 

So best way is to buy the rechargeable light/emergency light and torch for them to carry when they have to go out or more around. SO I bought one light for their class room, 3 emergency lights for them to use in their living room & one for the kitchen room and 2 small torch lights for them to carry around .... which you can see in the picture. All your daughters are busy with their study for the upcoming exam beginning next week ....the year end exam so not time to talk to us hhhhh.  Will write you more...

love from monsters at studies in the dark ...with rechargeable light

piya

 

 

Nigeria - Pam

Pam has managed to send some photos via a cyber café in Ibadan.  She has asked me to share them with you

The photos (attached) were taken at a school in Okeho.  Pam did a TT awareness session and also spoke about school links and showed the newspaper report from the Slough local paper. 

 Best wishes

Lorraine Duff

CAWD volunteer

 

Brazil.

Educational posters, teachers' notes and resource material  posted today for onward passage to Brazil.

Kenya........ Tony Robinson

Dear Friends,

I hope this letter finds you all well.

It is a while since I wrote regarding the projects that I’ve been doing in Kenya.  The last was in regard to the volunteer programme that took place in August last year.  Well, this programme took place!  We sent 15 volunteers in all between the 2 charities that I am a director of; relayNET (www.relaynet.org.uk) and Footsteps (www.footstepsuk.org).  Among the volunteers were my mother, her husband and my sister, as they decided this was the only way to spend any real time with me!

The programme was for two weeks and included; art, drama, football, tie-dye t-shirts, a school trip to the museum, airport and zoo, solar cooking, natural medicine, face painting, playground games like “British Bulldog and “What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?”, class room construction and interior decorating and training to the wider community in non-violence, discrimination and HIV/AIDS.  Those who went had a great time. (You can ask them! – see the Footsteps website - http://www.footstepsuk.org/Michael%27s_diary.htm )

The local community organised a fund-raiser also that raised over £2000 (which is in the context of the local daily average income of less than 50p).  Since March 2005 we have been helping out with the rebuilding of the school and we were delighted to see the progress that has been made with 7 brand-new class rooms in place.  This has led directly to Magunga Primary School jumping from 19th in the local league table to 5th according to the recent exams.  It was the most-improved school in the region.

Our involvement in the area is really making a difference.  In the Footsteps child-sponsorship programme, both the children that reached their last year of primary education passed with marks of over 60% which allowed them to progress to secondary school and our sponsorship will continue.  The local community are working together to develop community gardens, planting Artemisia in order to combat malaria and boost immunity in those with HIV/AIDS, and constructing flood defences to defend themselves against the terrible flooding that frequently affects the area.

With the success of our efforts at Magunga Primary School we are this year expanding the programme to Rae Mixed Primary School which is nearby.  It is slightly smaller than Magunga Primary School but facing all the same difficulties and very eager to welcome visitors.

We are now in the process of looking for volunteers to go on this years programme – our third.  All the details can be found here:

http://www.relaynet.org.uk/Volunteer2007-kenya.htm

Even if you can’t make it this year, please pass this e-mail on to all your friends, relatives and colleagues.  We have no budget for large scale marketing campaigns as we don’t spend money on administration, so we rely on the support of our friends and volunteers.

With best wishes,

Tony

India and British Airways

Melanie's Trip to India     Jan/Feb 2007 

 

Full report and photograph album   http://www.unesco.8m.com/India/india_home_page.htm

Thank you to British Airways who made this trip possible and for the extra baggage allowance enabling the transportation of necessitous children’s clothes, blankets, educational material and toys.

Melanie’s visit to India.

When the day finally came for me to go to India, it was a dream come true, and I could still barely believe it. I’d only ever dreamed of going to the land of my father having been  brought up in the very English countryside of Devon. We have been supporting an orphanage in Andra Predesh in India for 20 months. From Manchester I went to London Heathrow, where I caught my flight to Chennai, Madras, on the Bay of Bengal.  It was a 10 hour flight. The cabin staff opened the plane door, and a wave of heat just hit us like an oven door opening, after the turkeys are cooked.  Immediately the smells of spices and curries wafted up my nose. Galli, and his sons met us, and took us to the train station,. Coolies carried my very weighty bags on their heads :  with out a flicker...I stood in amazement. We caught a train to the city of Tirupati. Tirupati is a Temple city, where 1000s of people come on pilgrimage to visit the Hindu Temple. There are still a lot of villagers and city women aborting the little girl babies. Sometimes, when a baby girl is born, they put poison in their mouths, so they will die. This is because of the dowry. Every girl is expected to give her in-laws a very large sum of money. Parents who are poor and  have no chance of their girls getting married, if they do not have this dowry.  The culture also has a  casting system. If you are born a Brahman, then you are the very highest caste, but 7 castings lower, and then you will be an untouchable, and that means literally, no-one must touch you, or you would be contaminated, well I touched them, and hugged them, and kissed them, and told them I loved them. ....................

Kenya, Uganda and Romania

Substantial educational supplies, dance wear, trophies, specialist medical items, etc posted to Kenya, Uganda and Romania.