Save a Child

Registered UK charity 328218 - Registered US Non Profit 501c3 Tax ID: 80 055 654 www.saveachildsponsoring.org

Since 1986, giving deprived children in India a fresh chance through long-term sponsorship

The Save a Child field trip 2016

We have been blessed again with our volunteers! This year Cameron Lang and Anaihita Singh, both students at Durham University in the UK, spent their Christmas vacation doing our Field Trip. Between December 18 and January 9, with a pause for Christmas celebrations in Delhi, they met and photographed most of our 400 or so sponsored children and students. Each report and photo goes on Save a Child’s database record and is sent to the sponsor as an update on the child’s progress. Cam and Ani achieved this complex job with impressive commitment, energy, efficiency and smiles! We are deeply grateful to them. Please enjoy their reports below – the overall experience and then their visits to all four residential Homes we work with.

Cam in conversation with a SaC-sponsored boy at Institution for the Blind

Our field work trip – a rollercoaster experience Having done some in-depth volunteering experiences already, we both grabbed the opportunity to work with Save a Child. We strongly believe in education as a tool for change, and it was wonderful to see this in action throughout our field trip. It was SaC trustee Louise Sykes who suggested the idea in September. The next thing we knew our CVs were being reviewed! Shortly afterwards, we met with Louise Nicholson, Save A Child’s founder, in London to discuss the field trip’s objectives in detail – she made no bones about it being hard work but we were even more excited. Then began the preparations, ranging from acquainting ourselves with SaC’s database which we’d be using for the work to a shopping trip around Durham to buy gifts and plenty of local sweets to give the staff and children we’d be meeting. We set off on December 18 into a real adventure! For Cam, it was a first visit to India; for both of us it was the first visit to Kolkata. The trip brought many new experiences - with a few challenges along the way. We adapted to each new situation as we went along, testing our skills, sharpening our character traits. One day, for instance, we discovered a discrepancy between our updated name lists of the children we were about to meet, fairly alarming, but by stretching our problem-solving and diplomacy skills we sorted it out. Throughout the trip, we met and worked with people of all ages, religious backgrounds and spiritual beliefs, and with three different mother tongues, so our communication skills developed hugely. The success of our trip would not have been possible without support from many people at Save a Child and in India – we could not have done it without you! Louise and Bill at SaC: thank you for your consistent encouragement and your prompt responses to our long, questioning e-mails. In India, it was inspiring to see the wonderful work at each Home and to meet the dedicated staff; we thank them all. Uma-ji and Kamal-ji, our work in Delhi went smoothly thanks to you being by our side throughout. Swami-ji and Sujit-ji, you made our stay at RKVM very special – you took great care of us and taught us about the Mission’s work across West Bengal. Susmita-ji and all at ABWU, thank you for helping us get everything done so efficiently. We wish every child we met the very best future. We’ve left India with many memories to treasure, and hope to return one day. Meanwhile, we hope to continue to be a part of Save a Child’s amazing work.

Visiting the Homes – kids, more kids, and getting the job done!

With help from the Homes, Cam and Ani meet the SaC-sponsored kids DELHI Institution for the Blind, Delhi The first of the four residential Homes we visited was IfB. We were given a very warm traditional Indian welcome with garlands from some of the students, and met Mr. Gambhir and Mr. Gaur, two of the board members. After a tour of the Home, where we saw the computers whose teaching SaC funds, we enjoyed a splendid musical performance by some of the boys taught by the SaC-funded music teacher. SaC also sponsors the House Mother, a lovely lady who clearly dotes on the boys but told us she also keeps them in order! That first day we started to meet the sponsored children. The older students

chatted with us at length and gave us insights into their school curriculum and day-to-day lives at the home. It was inspiring to see that many had bright future ambitions and did not let their disability hold them back from living a full life. See Deborah Harse’s film about IfB http://site-117818-3374-4831.strikingly.com/#sac-films Jain Ashram, Delhi Here we met Mrs. Ritu Das, who oversees the running of the home – her grandmother founded it. We sipped tea while she told us about the history of Ashram, its mission and purpose. One of the SaC-sponsored Further Education students who lives at the Ashram then showed us around. We were impressed by its open and relaxed atmosphere, its good maintenance and its tidiness. After a delicious home-cooked lunch – the girls help with the cooking - we got down to meeting and chatting with the sponsored girls on return from their annual school function. They told us about their progress in school, their many extracurricular activities, and their ambitious hopes for the future! See the girls perform dancing-yoga http://site-117818-3374-4831.strikingly.com/#sac-films WEST BENGAL Ramakrishna Vivekananda Mission, Barrackpore and across West Bengal The Mission at Barrackpore is a large complex beside the Hooghly River outside Kolkata. We stayed in a quaint residential block near their head office building from where Swamiji and his monks oversee 47 centres throughout India! We would visit several over our eight-day stay. Our first two days were taken up meeting with the sponsored children living at Barrackpore and nearby Suryapur. Then we went into rural West Bengal to Joyrambati to see more SaC-sponsored children. It is a very spiritual place. We attended the morning and evening prayers at local temples and the monks taught us about RKVM and the beliefs it was founded on. From here, we journeyed deeper into the countryside to Purulia, our final RKVM stop. While we stayed here, we visited a local village to understand better the conditions that lead parents to bring their children to live at RKVM Homes. It was an eye-opening, humbling experience to see how very little some families have, and yet how warm and welcoming they were to us. This visit sharpened our appreciation of what RKVM offers children of the very poor. Seeing the progress of the children in the Homes was even more uplifting and encouraging. Back at Barrackpore, we met Swami Nityarupananda, General Secretary of RKVM. He shared with us some of the core beliefs of the mission, which mirror his own because he was brought up there. One that stuck out to us was that while RKVM obviously encourages nourishing and looking after the body by providing food, water, clean clothing etc. for these children, they put equal importance on nourishment of the mind through education and spiritual understanding. See ‘Indiawalla’, RKVM’s Bollywood-style musical about Swami Vivekananda http://site-117818-3374-4831.strikingly.com/#sac-films All Bengal Women’s Union Welfare Home for Girls, Kolkata Our last stop, right in the middle of huge Kolkata city, was ABWU. On arrival, we met Mrs Susmita Mitter who is a volunteer deeply involved in every aspect of ABWU. She told us how ABWU helps children from unfortunate backgrounds, from orphans to those who have suffered domestic violence at the hands of their own parents. Despite these misfortunes and thanks to ABWU’s staff, when we met the children we found them thriving, stable and happy. The centre-city campus is very spacious, with a lovely learning environment and space for sports. In addition, the Aftercare Unit gives appropriate care to older girls with slightly more complex troubles.

When we met with the sponsored children we were greatly impressed by their future aspirations and extra-curricular activities - which range from classical dance and singing, to state-level hockey and karate! We also witnessed two of SaC’s sponsored projects in action. At Zohra’s Spoken English class we saw her hold the young girls’ attention for an hour and a half, their eyes fixed on Zohra the entire time. With this charismatic rapport, the girls make great progress even in one lesson! The next day, we met the three counsellors part-funded by SaC to work with the more traumatized girls. They explained to us how they approach their work with the children, and what a difference consistent help can make. See several films Deborah Harse has made at ABWU – on dance, self-defence, and Saathi’s story http://site-117818-3374-4831.strikingly.com/

Cam and Ani meet long-term SaC-sponsored students, now almost ready to go out into the world End.