June 2011 newsletter
Dear Friends,
6 months has passed since I last wrote and as always, there has been a lot going on in Manvi and the villages during this time.
There are several projects of Father Eric’s I would like to update you about as they are very exciting and beginning to come to fruition.
‘Early years’ primary schools for children aged 3 – 7
Father Eric has identified a growing need for several village ‘early years’ primary schools for children aged 3 - 7 years old, who are living in some of the most remote and inaccessible villages. He would prefer for these young children to be at home with their mothers and be able to walk to school, rather than spend hours a day getting to and from St. Xavier’s. Understandably, hours of travelling over unmade roads crammed into an auto-rickshaw (whose driver might take a detour to incorporate another job en route to the school) is exhausting for such young children!
For this reason we are supporting the building of two, possibly three small village schools, whose children will then feed into St. Xavier’s at the age of 7. In a village called Pannur, due to an extremely generous donation plus the gift aid we have reclaimed on last year’s donations, we have been able to fund the purchase of 3 acres of land and the building of a temporary (cheap) school building for 120 children, which is hoped to be finished by the end of this month. This temporary school building will be used until funding has been secured for the permanent building that will eventually accommodate 250 children in 6 new classrooms. The temporary building will not then be redundant; it will be used for many purposes such as extra-curricular activities and possibly to house a new tailoring centre for the Dalit women.
I think it’s incredibly exciting to think that 120 young children from Pannur and the surrounding villages, are about to begin their education under the care of Father Eric and his team of teachers and fellow Jesuits, and that in future this amount will increase to 250 children. They will be nurtured and supported at this school, and their education will then continue at St. Xavier’s. They are about to begin an English-medium education that will give them a real chance to break out of their family’s perpetual poverty, once they have left school and got a good job or gone on to further education. And this is just the very beginning for these children - I can see their smiles and hear their singing as I type!
During April and May, Father Eric requested help from 28 Jesuit novices to help with the building of the temporary school. They camped in the villages during this time; here is a snippet from Father Eric: “The Jesuit Novices from Bangalore are with us till 21st of May. They are helping out in the construction of the feeder school in Pannur. They are happy even though they are in the hottest season ofthe year. Every evening after 7 p.m,they go to different villages to give awareness programme through entertainment. People enjoy this very much.”
Here are some photos of the young Jesuit novices helping with the building work!
There are two other ‘early years’ village schools we are hoping to help fund and we will keep you posted on the progress of these.
Tailoring Centre for Dalit women and teenage girls
The first of (hopefully)three tailoring centres has begun, and 15 Singer pedal sewing machines have been purchased by Father Eric. 30 women (2 per machine) have already begun their six-month tailoring apprenticeship. In the January newsletter, I told you about our visit to the village of Rajalli where we listened at length to the women asthey told us about their sufferings, primarily because of the lack of work available to them - sometimes only for 4 months of the year. The tailoring centre inRajalli is now up and running, and as soon asthese women have completed their training, they will be able to earn money by making and selling clothes both within their village and also at the local market. The financial independence they will gain will also bring with it greater respect from their husbands and they will be treated more fairly within their communities.
Here are some photos of the women with their machines.
St. Xavier’s School
Please find below an email I recently received from Father Eric:
“I have apiece of good news to share with you . Our CBSE results are out and we have got 100 per cent results and all our students have passed in first class. One of them has scored 96 per cent. Loyola School 10th std at State lavel has achieved 96 percent results with just one boy Ayyappa failing in one subjects. In general we are very much satisfied with thisperformance and with the hard work of the staff. I will be sending our children's letters to their sponsors through you. I will be enclosing their progress report so that they will come to know how their wards are faring. “
The children have just returned to school after their Summer holidays in April and May. They don’t all arrive back on the first day due to festivals that can last for up to a week, and some also have developed health problems, but Father Eric is hoping that by the end of next week he will have all of the children there.
Christmas cards, Coffee Mornings and Soup and Bread and Cheese lunches
We are hoping to have this year’s Christmas cards printed and packed by the end of August, to begin selling them from September onwards. We will be selling cards at a Christmas Fayre in Wareside on November 10th and 11th, and another in Great Hormead in November, date to be confirmed, but we would like more venues if possible to sell our cards. Would you or anybody you know, like to hold a coffee morning in the Autumn, with perhaps some home-made cakes on sale as well as Christmas cards? I think I could ask several people to make cakes to support any coffee mornings, or perhaps even a soup and bread and cheese lunch as an alternative to a coffee morning? Also, we’ve been to several Churches in the past and been allowed to sell cards after the service wherethey have sold very well, and I wonder whether your local church might allow us to do this,this year?
The potential to raise quite substantial funds through good old-fashioned, home-made cake sales is very high and I would be happy to support anybody who’d like to host one this year, please just let me know.
Thank you as always for your continued support, with love from Dinah, Peter and Helen
p.s. Date for your diaries, this year’s ‘do’ will be on December 3rd at Albury Village Hall, more details to follow …