Crakehall School update

Venkat has today had a meeting with the assistant engineer and agreed a timetable for the completion of our new Crakehall School building. With the Government School Building inspector due any day, it is important that we have the work completed speedily. We still hope and expect to be starting the new school year on the 1st June in the new school.

It will be a red letter day when we can finally say that the school is open for business!

Sakthi- a special story

Sakthi is a former IRDT worker who wanted to be a police lady. She studied hard and Venkat saved all her salary for 2 years until she had passed her police entrance exam and physical test. She has now been a police lady for about 2 years and is a true role model. She refuses to take any bribes and is very honest. This week she has been guarding prisoners between jail and court and she noticed that one of the women prisoners had a small baby which was both under-nourished and showing mosquito bites. Sakthi returned to the jail with a mosquito net, some food and biscuits and also gave the woman 400 rupees (about £6). The warder at the jail was so moved that he wrote a letter of commendation to the Police Superintendant and this has now been printed with Sakthi's picture in the local papers. We are very proud of our daughter and very special friend Sakthi.

Meena returns for leprosy treatment

I am delighted to confirm that Meena has now been found and has returned to Mettupalayam. She has been to the clinic who have confirmed early stages of leprosy and prescribed 1 months treatment with antibiotics. She will then return for a second examination to determine whether further treatment is necessary. Normally 6 months of antibiotics will halt the spread of the disease.

Meena is to stay at Mettupalayam with her relations and attend Mettupalayam School.

Thank you Venkat, Gopal and Patchyamman for taking such efforts to help this young girl.

An elephant blessing

Temple elephants are a regular feature of the bigger temples in South India. For a small donation, the elephant will give you a blessing. This is Jean, up front and personal with her elephant and receiving a blessing!

I found it quite scary being so close to such a large animal, particularly as you do hear stories of elephant rage! However, it is worth it, to be able to tell the story to friends and family when you return home.

Sometimes life is so hard in India. Meena is from the quarry community who were freed from debt slavery by IRDT some 5 years ago. Her family have moved to Karpakkam and only visit their friends and relatives near Mettupalayam on feast days. When we were there last month, we noticed that she was showing classic signs of leprosy and had hoped to arrange for her to visit the government hospital for diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately she has returned home before this could be arranged. Venkat is now going to send one of our farm workers, either Patchyamman or Gopal, on the bus to try to find her and talk to her parents about treatment. Ideally we would like her to stay in Mettupalayam for 6 months so that we can make sure she takes the antibiotics which will stop the disease from spreading and doing further damage. I hope to be able to confirm this later.

Billy Bear in India

The children at Leeming and Londonderry School, N Yorks very kindly agreed that Billy Bear could accompany us on our annual visit to the project. He really enjoyed his visit, meeting all the children at Mettupalayam School and he returned to school on Monday with his companions to tell all the children about his adventures! At Mettupalayam School, Billy was a star attraction, only in Tamil he is known as Billy Bommai!

On a serious note, Billy has provided many opportunities to explain to our children about life in another culture, in a different part of the world and he enables us to build very strong links, developing cohesion and understanding.

School trip

Hugo and Jean kindly paid to hire a coach to take some of the children, teachers and staff to visit Pondicherry today. On the way, they stopped at Auroville and this photo shows the Matrimandir in the background. It is a real treat for the children to go on school trips which are only able to be organised occasionally due to the cost. Thank you Hugo and Jean!

I have been wanting to visit Pondicherry for some time- perhaps on my next visit?