Some more good news from the Heal Village which give an idea of the activities our children are involved with at school.
Firstly, a Heal Village team won the State Level karate tournament and demonstrates the hard work they have been putting in.
Also, two of our children were winners in a painting competition held on the occasion of World Water Day with the topic ‘Water For Life’.
Hamanth:
Venkata Rao:
Well done children!
Very good news to share with you all!
We have just found out that three of our children have received admissions into engineering colleges.
Mamatha and Salma with EEE in Mittapalli Engineering college which is less than 10 kilometers away from the Heal Childrens Village.
Triveni has been granted admission to RVR Engineering college to study Chemical Engineering.
Everybody at HEAL is very happy and excited. This will be an inspiration for the other children.
Great news from the Heal Children’s Village, and Poverty Trap project in Guntur.
Our Heal children achieved very good grades in the SSC public examinations, with 43 children out of 46 achieving first classes and the remaining three children achieving second classes.
Mr P.Srinivasulu of our Nandana Rural School who is under Poverty Trap Scheme scored the top – 566 marks out of 600. This is 94.33% and 21 of our children achieved at least 500 marks.
These excellent results have been achieved through the hard work of the children and teachers – well done to you all.
Many of these children would never have had the opportunity to receive such an education without the financial support of Heal. For just £7.50 per month you can sponsor one of our children under the Poverty Trap scheme at Guntur to receive an education.
Greetings.
Easter tells the resurrection of Lord Jesus giving new hope and strength to his believers and followers. Easter comes in spring season bringing new life to the nature. As Easter symbolizes new hope and life – you people, with great love, affection, concern and kindness to the needy are giving a ray of hope, confidence and courage to surpass the difficulties traveling towards a new world.
How can we thank you except wishing you and your families a happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful long life!
With lots of love,
Your children at HEAL.
We are delighted to announce that our Heal children have been working hard with their karate practice and it has been rewarded by the team winning the championship at the recent State level tournament.
Well done to all the children who clearly worked so hard!
I spent the whole of February 2009 at HEAL and the Bala Kuteer School opposite. It was the most amazing time, and I would recommend it to anybody. In particular, everyone was overwhelmingly welcoming, cheerful and generous towards me. I spent most of my time helping in the school, and offer the following observations to HEAL and to any future visitors.
There are about 200 resident children, and a further 600 day students. The children study incredibly hard. As the exams approach, their day runs from 4:30am to 11:00pm, and it is common to see them sitting in groups round a single lamp outside, late at night, murmuring revision subjects to themselves. Fortunately, volunteers are not expected to keep up with this schedule! The official school day begins at 9:45am with assembly, and ends at 4:30pm.
The children have simple tastes and are easily pleased. They all want to greet their visitors at all times, whenever and wherever they are seen, with a “Good morning Uncle!” shouted from all directions as you walk around. They want to know if you know any magic tricks (it’s a good idea to have on ‘up your sleeve’!); if you’ll watch them launching their spinning-tops; if you’ll play a ball game or, more bizarrely, show them your biceps! And do you know Freddie Flintoff, seeing that you’re from England?
Days in school were filled with helping in English lessons, especially with pronunciation, and it was a help to ensure that a teacher stayed in the room, as the kids would get excited to have a visitor, and be less disciplined as a result. If you’re an experienced teacher, you’ll be able to deal with this yourself. I’m not, but found that lessons with a local teacher present were a delight. Don’t forget that you’re an expert in spoken English, and the children (and staff) need to speak in English with you as much as possible, to improve their clarity, grammar and pronunciation. You could take CDs or cassettes of a ‘talking book’ or stories for children, but DVDs from the UK (region 2) don’t work in India.
The younger children enjoy singing nursery rhymes (which is a means of learning English) but they aren’t particularly musical, and love it when you go along and sing something properly. Music is an area which needs to be developed. There are three small Casio keyboards, but no-one plays any instruments, and the children have little concept of melody or pitch. Take a CD of songs for children. If you’re a guitar player, it’s worth going to the trouble of taking it. The school might be able to find one locally, but it’s not likely to be in good condition.
The Indians have a principle of treating their guests as ‘gods’. There is endless food and kindness. Meals are brought to your room, but I found it better to eat with the children whenever possible, sitting on the floor in the HEAL dining room. The kids loved the attention, and the fact that I was becoming one of them. After supper, reading a bed-time story (there are some in the library, but take your own!) was really appreciated. A house-mother or senior pupil will help to translate the story into Telugu for the little ones.
There is one broadband connection in the school office, and it’s usually available for keeping in touch with friends and family after 4:30, or during the day for more official use.
While the children are uninhibitedly friendly, I found some of the staff to be a bit awe-struck with a visitor – especially one who is treated like a god! It would be a good idea to ask for a teacher-buddy to be appointed who can help to break through that barrier. The Indian custom is for the sexes to be kept separate in a very ‘proper’ way. The boys and girls sit on separate sides of the classroom, eat at separate ends of the dining room and don’t play together. A volunteer befriending staff of the opposite sex will not meet with approval, and the school have decided not to allow mixed groups of unmarried volunteers to stay. That aside, I can’t express how kind everyone is.
Heal Village News
Greetings from Heal Village!
Here we come with some more news from Heal!
The weather has changed from scorching heat to pleasant coolness, specially in the evenings. We had lots of rains this year. The trees in Chethana are washed clean of all the dust and look green!
The children have a busy time in the school with regular classes and also special classes after school hours. When they finish their midterm tests this month, they will get their midterm holidays.
Heal UK started a new project under Poverty Trap. The project provides ‘Mid Day Meals’ for 200 children who cannot afford to have a meal before coming to school because they come from very poor families. Under this scheme the children also receive clothes, uniforms, and books.
The two photos to the left show Dr. Manga Devi, serving food and handing over uniforms to the children. To the right you can see the children having their mid day meal.
Volunteers from Oundle School UK, Tristan, Sam, Flora and Emily stayed in Heal from 24th August to 19th Sept this year.
The children had a happy time interacting with the volunteers, playing cricket and volley ball with them or learning some English songs. They also had fun teaching them our language, Telugu!
Good bye ! will meet you again !
Children & Staff from Heal Village
Archive 2005
How harvest festival is celebrated in the Village.
Dear Oliver, Joshua, Will Eden, Callum Eden, Tayjoi, Chloe, Joshua M, Bronwyn, Ames, Eliza, Hanna, Connie Pugh, Elizabeth, Laurence, Kushan, Kleran, Antonio, Ria, John, Caiklin, Harry, Ada, Zaeh Heather, Jimmy Coppo, Toby, Robbie, Chloe, Gemma, Joe, Tom Wright,
Greetings from Heal!
We received the beautiful Christmas cards you sent us. Thank you very much for all the wonderful sketches you drew.
WE WANT TO THANK EACH ONE OF YOU BY NAME. If we misspelt any name or frogotten a name please forgive us, our love goes to all of you.
Anne told us that you collected quite a sum at the Harvest Festival. Thank you very much. We sent proposals as to what should be done with the money and as soon as we hear from Anne we shall go ahead and let you know.
Do you know how we celebrate Harvest Festival in our place? It is a very important one for the state of Andhra Pradesh, the state in which Heal is situated. India is such a vast country with many States 23 of them and each state has its own language and life style and even Festivals !
In Andhra Pradesh, the Harvest Festival comes in January. The farmers would have finished bringing their produce home . They buy new clothes for every one and send for all the relations, especially newly weds, in the family. It is celebrated for three days!
The first day is called Bhogi when they light a bonfire and sing and dance around it. The next day is the Big festival with all the family members gathering for a family feast and the festivities continue for the third day.
One of the features of this festival is the arrival of a man called Haridasu who comes singing devotional songs early in the morning even before the sun rises and we give them money or rice. He is very colourfully dressed with a shiny brass vessel on his head into which we put some rice. I am sending you a picture of him. You may find it interesting.
Another interesting feature is the arrival of a colourfully dressed bull! They bring it around and play devotional songs on the clarinet. They ask the bull to bless the family in front of whose house they stop and the bull nods his head showing his willingness. We give some money or rice to the boy who brings the bull. I am sending you a picture of him too I am sure you will find it interesting.
During this time every one draws colourful designs in front of their houses with lime powder and coloures and even have competetions among them and get prizes for the best drawn designs!
You must have come back from your Christmas break. You must have started school. At Heal classes are going on full swing and before long it will be time for Annual Examinations!
Bye for the present,
From Heal