Nepal - Metta Centre

Thanks to a dear friend of A Ray of Hope, Uma and Salina enjoy the comfort of new beds.

Winning School in the Cicero Classics Competition Paris receives the Federico Mayor Prize. Federico is our friend and patron for the Competition.

Patrick Voisin, Director of Cicero in France, and Anne Dicks, Director in UK, both foundators of the European Cicero Competition in 2006, give the Federico Mayor Prize to Mr. Patrice Corre, Headmaster of Lycée Henri IV in Paris, as Aleksi Moine, student of Lycée Henri IV, won the cultural test of the competition. More details about this prizegiving ceremony at http://concourseuropeencicerofr.blogspot.com/ .

India - Mumbai - affiliation of Vision Rescue into the family of A Ray of Hope

We welcome the affiliation of Biju, his team and Vision Rescue into the global family of A Ray of Hope - depending on lines of communication so will determine our possible support. Don
Mumbai is one of the 4 major Metropolitan cities of India with a population of 24 million people. There are 3,00,000 street children living on the streets of Mumbai. With all the help provided to these children it is estimated that only 15,000 of them receive any kind of attention and care. Vision Rescue is a non-profit, registered charity involved in feeding, providing non-formal education, medical help, skill training and other kinds of help to the addicted and abused street children.
To rescue the people on the streets who are addicted, marginalized, harassed and abused by giving them food, clothing, education, counseling and rehabilitation so that they can live with dignity and respect.
“Little did I know what I was putting my foot into, regarding the deep waters of the needs and challenges of the city of Mumbai. Though the images of the children on the streets would haunt me, I never thought it would make any difference even if I tried to help a few of the hundreds and thousands of street children in Mumbai. I kept holding myself back from this enormous need standing out like a huge scar on the face! Until....

One day a friend of mine told me about a newspaper cutting he had seen, there was a picture of a 3 year old boy lying next to a dog. Looking closely at the picture one could figure out that the little boy was drinking the milk of that dog!! The caption given under the picture read "This dog is his mother". When i heard this, that was it!

I decided that i was going to do something about this and not just turn away from the horrendous conditions of these children. If i could make a diffrence in the life of 'one' of these kids, if i could keep 'one' child from drinking the dog's milk, 'one' child death due to starvation and malnutrition, i would do it!

Now the excitement of the possiblities and the avenues available to change the destiny of people thrills my every moment!"

Biju Thampy
(Founder - Vision Rescue)

Nigeria - "Resource Sharing Network" 17th July, 2009

On 17th July, Anu, Resource Sharing Network - gathered together a few mentees to distribute sports' supplies to an orphanage and a school for children with hearing difficulties - the finances and arrangements were made first by the Ulster Teachers' Union, Carol, Kevin and Gerry - the endeavours of Anu and the commitment of the mentees. The children they shared with will be enriched but the mentees will have gained much to bring meaning to their lives. These are quality days that are adorned by the happiness of children.Let's dedicate this video to the beautiful children they cared and shared with.The angelic voices are from young adults in Northern Ireland who will one day rock the world with their talent.Don
Nothing is better in A Ray of Hope than many joining together to produce happiness for our little ones.

India - supplies for the "school bus"

Thanks to Pictorial Charts - a series of desktop science books and a substantial amount of educational posters, teachers' notes and lesson plans shortly to be sent through Andy to India.

Nepal - "new princesses"

Thanks to a generous benefactor from Portugal, Piya has just received sufficient financial support as a "starter subsidy" to support the new girls Salina and Uma.
Our sincere thanks to Krishna, as always, for arranging the smooth transaction of finances. No doubt photographs will follow in the near future - of the girls in their new outfits.

France/UK/Europe Cicerco awards the Federico Mayor Prize.

Anne and Judy went to Paris to present Patrick with a surprise Diploma on behalf of all the Classics teachers round Europe who are partners in the CICERO 'experience'. Anne also presented the Federico Mayor prize to the Headmaster of the Lycée Henri IV - the overall winner of the Odyssey competition came from this school.

India Mumbai - a request.

Hi Don,
My name is Andy Robson and was given your details by Debbie Hepplewhite. I am currently working with an organisation called Vision Rescue out in Mumbai, India. They travel to different location throughout Mumbai feeding and educating slum and street children who don't go to school and have little hope for the future. They have two buses which are used as classrooms and they currently have about 700 children a day who are educated on the buses. They also do work amongst the drug addicts and prostitutes. The education that the children receive is still very basic and Biju, the founder of Vision Rescue, is very keen to improve the education and take it to the next level. Over the last 4 years they have helped about 100 children into full time education and they want to increase that number.
I have been a teacher for 11 years and more recently, have been working as an assistant Headteacher of a junior school. I have gone out to India to help Biju with his educational programme and my main role has been to train the teaching staff. Many of them are just volunteers and do not have any qualifications. I have been helping then to teach English and maths and giving them advice on their general teaching styles and methods. I am also working on developing a sports programme for a group of street children aged between 12 and 16. I am currently coaching them football with a view to making them into a team.
The main problem I have faced is the lack of resources. The buses are just buses and have no education material or equipment on them and the children use chalk and chalk boards. The teachers have a whiteboard and pens, that is it! They are only in the bus for one hour a day and are taught maths, English and Hindi, with games or a dvd on saturdays.
I contacted Debbie to ask for help and advice with the English Syllabus as I was very keen to introduce them to phonics. She has been very supportive and is going to help me by giving me access to her phonics programme and help me train the staff via email.
I am very keen to kit out the buses so that they look like classrooms and the children have the right learning environment. To do this I have been looking for educational posters, displays, games and other resources that can be use in the teaching of basic english reading and writing, and maths. I would also like to provide the children with writing books and pencils, and by get sports equipment that we can use for the sports coaching. This is the area that Debbie felt you might be able to help me with. I have had a look on you website and it is amazing the work that you are doing. It is so true about the difficulties of donating money and I know that Vision Rescue have faced some of those problems. They have very little money to spend on anything other that their general running costs.
I have attached a few photos for you to see and would be grateful of any help, advice or support that you can give me and Vision Rescue so we can give these kids a better life and a better future!

Look forward to hearing from you

All the best

Andy

Ethiopia - a selection of Children's Art Work

Uganda Seguya visits Sanyu Babies' Home

I visited Sanyu Babies’ Home last Friday and took the baby clothes. Please see attached some photos. Sanyu Babies’ Home was established in 1929 and looks after abandoned babies between 1 day and four years from all over the country. These are abandoned in hospitals, garbage pits, bus and taxi parks, roadsides and at the home’s gate. The children stay at the home for up to 4 years if they are not adopted or taken over through fostering. At age four, the children are passed from the home to orphanages. There are facilities to support up to 50 babies and currently there 42little ones.
Beautiful times and best wishes,
Seguya

Belarus - Natasha gives birth to a baby girl - more details to follow.

On behalf of us all can I extend our warmest best wishes to Natasha and her husband on the birth of their baby daughter. More details will undoubtedly follow.

Nepal - girls receive new summer clothes.

Our thanks to a very caring lady that due to her generosity provided the "princesses" with new summer clothes. " Miss Nepals" everyone.

Nepal - new princesses settle in to the Metta Centre

Uma...........................and........................... Salina

South Africa from Jenny

Dear All
The footballs were a tremendous success - Gordon did some coaching and games were played between the two schools - everywhere we stopped we were mobbed by the kids shouting 'Mr Gordon, football'! And the teachers were just delighted with the educational posters too. And the biscuits - need I say more! We gave some to each school as well as using them at one of the welcome celebrations for the children who were there. The children, teachers and Friends of Goboti want to say thank you so much for these contributions, they were greatly enjoyed and will be put to good use.

At the moment I have only got the photos I took, but I have attached two which show us handing over all the things we took. I know there's a bit of video of handing over the biscuits but John has it at the moment so I'll send it later.
Thank you to all
Jenny

World Heritage sites in the United Kingdom

Resource Sharing Network Nigeria

Good day!

I appreciate all of the kind words and wishes from you my friend.
Thank you so very much.

This is to intimate us that the next Youths Mentoring Cycle commences
in a few months time -September, 2009 while the current cycle ends in
August. The reason for this is to create more rooms for other
less-priviledged youths in the Society, especially youths in Public
Senior Secondary Schools, Class SSS 3.

To our Mentors who have patiently waited to be paired up with a
suitable Mentee, but, couldn't get any - We sincerely apologise for
these lapses. We assure you that in our next cycle, we hope to reach
out to more students in other fields than Sciences!

The First Phase of our Mentoring Programme has enlightened us and
prepared us act right in the next cycle, so that the best can be given
to these young ones. To one of our Mentors, who have volunteered to
help develop a new web portal (Website) strictly for Youths Mentoring
Youths Programme. We do appreciate your gesture, thank you. We look
forward to launching this website soon.

To all our Mentors who are interested in the Next Mentoring Cycle,
kindly request for our "Re-branded" Mentorship Application Form today.
. . . .Hey! we need Sponsorsssss. (Yes, we really do)


Once again, thank you for helping us pass on a baton of Excellence!


Tosin Taiwo Anu
Resource Sharing Network.

Brazil - from Oscar