Tsunami orphans in Southern India rehoused in time for Christmas thanks to India Direct charity
Ninety-five children, victims of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami which decimated their lives five years ago, will this year celebrate Christmas in a new purpose built children’s home in the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, provided and maintained by Cheshire based charity India Direct (www.indiadirect.org.uk).
‘Joy’ Home, as it is called, replaces temporary accommodation rented in the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami by the charity, which has cared for destitute children at Bethel Home in Chennai since 1995, and now cares for Joy Home too. Chairman of India Direct, Architect David Armstrong, was in Chennai when the Tsunami struck. “At the time all we could do was provide material help to some of the more remote and harder hit villages, but we also knew we had to do something meaningful for their future.”
That future began with designing and building the charity’s second home whilst establishing a temporary shelter catering both for orphans and children whose parents could no longer look after them. Macclesfield based Armstrong Architects’ design is based on the traditional Indian ‘Keralan Christian’ style, featuring an open central courtyard which ensures good all round natural light and ventilation for the dormitories. Now the new home is a hub of learning that extends beyond the lives of the children who live there. During the day it becomes a tailoring school for children of fishing families in an innovative scheme where graduates are given a sewing machine and tailor’s kit to take back to their communities and set up in business.
This year, Bethel and Joy Homes also played host to students from Poynton High School who have been closely involved with the project for the past 5 years. A play park financed by the school was opened at Joy when they visited. Several classes at PHS now sponsor Indian children, which costs just £25 per child per month, providing that child with accommodation, food, clothes, schooling and basic medical care.
“Our experience in Chennai proved invaluable when it came to helping the Tsunami victims and shows just how much can be achieved working with a few good people. This year we can see a Christmas with a future that was unthinkable for these children a few years ago,” adds Armstrong.
The major challenge for 2010 will be the addition of a separate accommodation block to comply with recent changes in the laws covering orphanages by the local authorities. “We’ve been so lucky and privileged in what we’ve achieved so far and the people’s whose lives we’ve reached, yet there’s so much more we want to do,” concludes Armstrong.
India Direct was formed in 1995 following a meeting with Pastor Martin from Madras who was caring at that time for 7 orphans in a rented mud hut which had been flooded in the Monsoons. With no support available locally, India Direct was formed to provide a permanent home for these children. Bethel home opened in 1996 and is now a permanent, happy home for about 50 destitute or orphaned children.
Today, a total of 150 children are given a home for as long as they need it. They live in a relaxed family style environment and are given complete care: clean water, food, clothes, full-time education, training for jobs, medical care, pets and friends.
All Trustees and support staff of India Direct are volunteers, allowing the charity to send 100% of all donations to work in India and cover its administration from a portion of reclaimed tax.
Samaritans Lisa’s Story Advert
We’ve just been given the video for the Samaritans Lisa’s Story new TV advert being shown this November.
As we move towards the Christmas season, makes you think about all those who aren’t lucky enough to be part of a happy family life.
To donate to Samaritans and help them continue to answer every call, 24/7, 365 days a year please visit: www.samaritans.org/lisa.
Here’s the video:
Shoe Aid for Africa - UK Families Making a Difference
The collection for the 2008/9 Shoe Aid for Africa campaign took place last October and finished poignantly on Child Poverty Day - Friday 17th October. Children and families across the UK rallied together to donate their unwanted shoes in a bid to change another child’s life, in Africa.
Shoe care experts Kiwi launched the campaign to give UK families a chance to change lives in Africa. Children’s shoes from the UK, which would otherwise have been thrown away, will be cherished by children who have never known the luxury of owning a pair. This first pair of shoes gives these children enormous self-esteem and pride.
A selection of schools, Sure Start centres as well as Scout groups across the country kindly donated over 20,000 pair of shoes to the cause last year. Kiwi representatives spent time in UK schools talking to children about the shoes they donated and how they felt about helping a child in Africa. The children wrote letters to accompany the shoes wishing the children in Africa happiness and describing life in England.
Here is an example of one of the letters that were written
Andy from Cippenham Primary School, Slough
Hello my name is Andy and I am 9 years old. The shoes I have donated are the ones I dearly loved and I played football with them and all kinds of sports with them. I hope you have a wonderful time with them. I want to be a footballer when I grow up and if that doesn’t go well I can always get a job at the theatre selling tickets and popcorn. I am happy to give you these shoes because I don’t know what I would do without my shoes. I don’t know what you like but I certainly love animals and if you can, can you please give me a new species of animal, especially cats, I adore them.
From Andy
I hope you really like my shoes and rock on!
Just over a month after the collection, sorting began at the Planet Aid UK warehouse in Corby, Northamptonshire. Planet Aid UK is the British member of Humana People to People. On 20th November 2008 Kiwi representatives wrapped up warm and got stuck in helping to sort thousands of pairs of shoes.
The country identified as being most in need by the African branch of Humana, ADPP, was Mozambique. The shoes started their three-month journey to Mozambique just before Christmas and were shipped via Durban in South Africa to Beira, the primary port of Mozambique. At present when second hand clothes and shoes are distributed in Africa it is common for the recipient to be charged a small sum to cover the transport and handling costs. In the case of the ‘Shoe Aid for Africa’ campaign, all costs are totally funded by Kiwi so that both adult and children’s shoes can be given out for free.
Whilst in Mozambique, Kiwi representatives spent a week in April travelling around ADPP programmes including TCE (Total Control of the Epidemic) HIV/AIDS camps, townships and street children’s schools and orphanages in the Sofala and Manica provinces of Mozambique. The Kiwi team were greeted with wonderful African singing and dancing at the symbolic distributions. They spent time meeting children and learning about their daily lives. They also took with them footballs and plenty of classroom equipment including crayons, pencils and notepads to aid the children in their classes. With their new equipment the children wrote letters of thanks back to the children in the UK. This enabled the children to engage and understand each other’s diverse cultures and made the donations far more personal for the recipients of the shoes.
ADPP street school in Chimoio, Mozambique
My name is Adam Fernando. I’m from Mozambique and I have short hair and brown eyes. I would like to say to you thank you for offering us the shoes. I used to walk bare feet but due to your help, now I’m happy with the shoes. In Mozambique the climate is temperate, it’s sometimes cold and sometimes rainy.
At one particular school in Chimoio called “Formigas de Futuro”, meaning “ants of the future”, the Kiwi team spent an afternoon listening to a cultural programme of song and dance followed by an exhausting football game! The children loved playing in the long grass and sweltering heat, most of them barefoot, and they certainly gave the Kiwi team a good game!
The experience was a real eye-opener and it soon became evident how important education was in changing attitudes and driving development in Mozambique, which remains one of the world’s poorest countries.
Director for Kiwi, Margaret Jobling, is thrilled with the response to the Shoe Aid for Africa campaign and overwhelmed by the number of shoes donated. She hopes that it’s success can be built upon with this year’s campaign:
‘The Shoe Aid for Africa campaign has allowed us at Kiwi to engage with children around the country and educate them on the difficulties children face in less privileged parts of the world. It was a fantastic for members of the team to visit Mozambique and take part in the distribution of the shoes first hand. They were privileged to meet the Humana representatives working there and learn about the fantastic work they are doing across numerous projects. Getting actively involved at every stage of the campaign enabled us to see how Kiwi’s support can make a difference and drives us to build on this success for Shoe Aid for Africa 2009’.