Hiya everyone!! So I finally made it to India, my last country on this trip. I’m staying with a family in the Pudukkotai district in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. I have just started a month long programme volunteering with the Indian Social Services Institute. So far I have been helping out at some of the child day care centres that they run in several villages in Pudukkotai, providing free day care for working mothers. I have also been attending a seminar about NGO’s working in Tamil Nadu, sustainability and future projects. You can see some of the photo’s I have uploaded recently. The seminar was over two days and involved all of the volunteers from Pudukkotai and from the tsunami area where ISSI are providing micro credit and help for widows, caring for orphans and running youth groups and training centres. If you are at all interested you can visit the website: www.indianssi.org At the end of day one of the seminar the children from the training centres and evening schools put on a show. Some of them were incredible dancers and singers. Children as young as 6/7yrs got up on stage in front of hundreds of people and performed a dance or sung. Considering some of them were too shy to even look at me during the day I was amazed. For the evenings activities I was dressed up in a sari. I’d only been there two days and already they were dressing me up! The sari was pure silk and all I can say is that I’m so glad I don’t have to wear one everyday as they take forever to put on and there’s so much material it gets really hot. The organization works mainly with women and throughout the day many of the women volunteers gave speeches and actively participated in discussions, which is something that is quite rare in Indian culture. They are all very passionate about their work and have some really innovative ideas for the future. Over the next few weeks I will be visiting and helping out at the various day care centres, evening schools and training centres as well as visiting the projects in the tsunami area. On a more personal note, I would really love to make a difference during my short time here and as you may have noticed from some of the later photo’s, one of the day care centres is in a serious state of disrepair, the building is structurally unsound and there is just one room where the children play with a few broken toys, whilst the women cook lunch on an open fire in the corner. I have spoken to the director off ISSI about the dangers to the children and he is aware of the problems but has no money to improve the building. With just 20,000 rupees (the equivalent of about £235) they can make the building a lot safer and build a separate kitchen area. If I can raise this money quickly I will also be able to help carry out some of the work during my time here and see some results. I would really appreciate it if you could donate any amount of money, even if it’s just 50p. If you would like to help, please contact me at [email protected]. Sorry to use the blog as a tool to extract money out of you, but I know you’re all really lovely people and you can’t get me whilst I’m in India ha ha ha! Anna xxxxxx