As ever, the children, who are always excited to have visitors, had prepared as special welcome for their guests.

The trip was a particularly emotional one for Jag, who was returning home to the place where he spent his childhood.

“We took our whole family, nine of them, for Christmas to India to see Jag’s family,” explained Celia, whose cycling skills are the stuff of legend to the 2010 Cycle India team.

“We went to see his school in Tenali and his Village, which is near Guntur. Our sons, both rising 40 years, had never been to India to see where Jag spent the first 27 years of his life.

“And we visited Heal Village where they gave us an overwhelming greeting. The children put on a Christmas nativity play which was marvellous and represented a lot of hard work by teachers and pupils.

“Our grandchildren were amazed at the children’s achievement.”

Final drawings have been submitted to the local authorities and among the VIPs who attended the laying of the Ceremonial Foundation Stone on November 16 were Dr Manga Devi, who runs the school next to HEAL Children’s Village at Guntur, and Dr Bala Vardhana Rao, Member of the Legislative Authority for nearby Gannavaram.

One hundred people were invited to the puja ritual ceremony – performed to bless the building and the project as a whole, regarded as an important stepping stone to ensuring its success.

The ritual for the Paradise Village was performed at 9.54am local time – an auspicious moment, or ‘suba muhurtha’, calculated for a particular geographic position within the frame of a specially chosen day and using the time of sunrise for that particular position as the starting point. Among the many HEAL representatives from India and the UK in attendance was Amanda Smith, who has been visiting Andhra Pradesh to check on progress prior to taking up her new role as vice- principal of the HEAL Paradise Village.

“HEAL Paradise is a kernel of hope and from the 16th of November we can begin building a school and a future for underprivileged children to have the best education we can provide,” said Amanda.

“The school I am here in India to set up ready for admission in June 2012 may not yet have been built, I am assured that once building work commences, it will happen very quickly.”

In addition to providing vital schooling and a home for many, many children, Paradise will offer so much more to the local community, including an institute for the blind, industrial training, a health centre and a junior college. Much detailed planning has gone into ensuring that the village operates in a self-sustaining and eco-friendly manner, taking care of the children in a holistic environment that will help them to develop to their potential. To achieve this the Paradise Village aims to make use of the latest technologies in energy generation and conservation.

The site itself is nestled amidst beautiful surroundings, its borders demarcated by the expanse of Lake Brahmalingam to the south-east and canals to the north-east and south-west, which provide irrigation for the local farming communities. Entirely self-contained and secluded from the busy highway that connects the village to the city of Vijayawada, the site provides the perfect setting for the harmonious growth and development of the children who will come to call it home.

An array of sustainable techniques and systems like solar and wind power, hydroponic vegetable gardens and solar cooking are incorporated within the site’s design proposals, including the recycling of waste materials to create energy. The village will have extensive green cover and the planting of fruit-bearing and shady trees will increase the scope for self-sustainability. HEAL’s vision is for this centre to be a model of excellence in design, sustainability and management, which will care for the most needy children and prepare them for adult life with education, skills, an awareness of their responsibility to protect valuable resources, and a caring attitude to the less fortunate people in society.

Plans are in place not only for the construction of a school, family-style dormitories and a range of recreational facilities, but a visitors’ centre, auditorium, artistic and manual workshops, which will combine to maintain the traditional Indian ‘gurukul’ system, whereby residential students are provided with education, values and life-skills. HEAL is appealing to individuals and businesses to help us to speed this project along by sponsoring a classroom, a dormitory, a workshop or arts building, or by providing funds for tree planting, or eventually by sponsoring individual children.

Sponsors can even have rooms and buildings named after themselves, a business or a loved one, and trees can be planted in memory of a loved one, and a named plaque attached. If you would like to support the project, and help to improve the lives of thousands of Indian children in the future, please contact us at healsec@hotmail.co.uk.

Please follow us on @healvillage so that you have updates on our progress at your fingertips.

Among the latest ‘tweets’ is a picture posted from Kanuru School in Vijayawada, a Heal-funded school, showing the children in their smart new uniforms.

There will also be future updates from the Heal Children’s Village in Guntur and from the site of the new Paradise Village project where a ceremonial Puja ritual will be held during November prior to the long-awaited commencement of building work.

The Puja is performed to bless the building and the project and has importance in ensuring its success.
Amanda Smith is currently in India to keep an eye on progress before taking up her new role as vice-principal of the Heal Paradise Village in Thotapally and is also spending time visiting with the children in Guntur.

She will be tweeting updates direct from India, and her Indian adventure can also be followed through her personal blog online at amandainindia.edublogs.org.

Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year in Andhra Pradesh and is widely celebrated by families, who perform traditional activities together in their homes.

Celebrations include decorating homes with lights, sharing sweets and gifts, as well as worship and religious rituals, but undoubtedly setting off festive fireworks is what the Heal children look forward to most of all!

The story behind Diwali and the manner of celebration varies from region to region, but the essence is the same – to rejoice in the awareness of the ‘inner light’, the uplifting of spiritual darkness and the celebration of the victory of good over evil.

In Andhra Pradesh, festivities start out at the crack of dawn and carry on well into the night. Most people make a trip to the local temple along with their families to seek the blessings of their respective gods before the night sky is lit up with a dazzling array of noisy fireworks.

The children of the Heal Village in Guntur may not have family homes where they can enjoy these celebrations, but there is nevertheless the feeling of great joy and excitement as their faces are lit up by sparklers under the watchful eye of their teachers and house mothers, safe in the knowledge that they are all part of the Heal extended family.

The improvements brought about not only by the dedication and hard work of the children, their teachers and house mothers, but through continued support from HEAL sponsors, are there for all to see.

No fewer than 16 senior children at the Village have recently won Polytechnic placements to engineering courses, double the number achieved last year, and four times the number in 2009!

Eleven of the placements were in electronics & communication, another in electrical & electronics engineering and two each in computers and mechanical engineering.

In addition to those 16, another 22 children successfully qualified in Intermediate, IT, nursing and other vocational courses, demonstrating the wide range of skills being developed.

These are just the latest positive results to come out of the school following excellent academic performances by the children in science, mathematics and languages, all of which pays tribute to the
educators within the Village.

Many pupils point to the 10th class as being a pivotal time in their lives and HEAL supporters can feel proud that no fewer than 38 children at the Village passed their 10th class examinations this year. And the message coming out of the Village is that it is the support of HEAL and its generous sponsors which inspires the school to set, and continually achieve, higher and higher goals. A growing number of children in HEAL’s care are now going on to become promising young students, some entering further education to help secure their future.

Teachers within the Children’s Village school assess those pupils who they believe are capable of going on to successfully further their education. And through its further education budget, HEAL is committed to helping these bright young adults, who it is hoped will be able to not only go on to achieve their ambitions in life, but to one day be able to put something back into their local communities. This is vitally important for the future development of the region and is seen as an important and expanding area of the charity’s work in Andhra Pradesh.

In addition to HEAL residential and poverty trap sponsors, we are therefore seeking vital financial backing for these higher education students. For £48 per month, it is possible to sponsor a student’s
education for between one and three years at a higher educational facility.

It is crucial that the children who grow up in the HEAL Village are not forgotten once they head out into the world. They need our support more than ever at a time when they are just beginning
to engage successfully with the future. HEAL aims to gradually increase its funding for those leaving the school to ensure these children can go on to fulfill their true potential.

An exciting news to share with! Today the 10th results are announced. CENT percent! All the 36 children have passed the exam.

Makkena Swetha who has been with us since her early childhood got 92% and stands 1st in the school.

Yasaswini got 100% in Mathematics and 5 more children 99%.

The top mark in Telugu is 94%,
Hindi – 92%,
English – 86%,
Science – 96%
Social – 96%.

The least is the 1st class i.e. 60%.

A couple of days back the results of Polytechnic entrance are announced. 28 children got qualified. All the Children, Teachers and House mothers worked so hard day and night to achieve this. Our grateful thanks to HEAL and specially to you for inspiring all of us to reach the set goal.

Having worked over previous months with my colleagues at PLMR to support HEAL UK gain local Peterborough press coverage for its latest fundraising efforts and to launch the new Paradise Village initiative, I was very excited about seeing it all in action. Gabriella, having recently completed a Masters Degree in Human Rights at the University of London, was also keen to visit the project – sharing a deep passion for supporting projects that improve the health and education of children from deprived backgrounds abroad.

From the moment we arrived we were struck by HEAL’s caring and loving atmosphere, and how welcoming and happy all the children and staff were to see us. Throughout our visit, Gabbi and I were continually overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of our hosts – an ethos which clearly emanates from the core of HEAL’s approach as an entirely volunteer-run charity.

The first activity that we had the pleasure of experiencing was an aerobics and dance session, led by Ann Garrett, HEAL UK’s Sponsorship Secretary. Alongside 200 beautifully dressed women in sarees, who had come to HEAL from surrounding local villages to learn grassroots skills to take back to their communities (including maternal and infant healthcare, hygiene and basic education), we all embarrassed ourselves doing squats and star-jumps in time to the music – causing much amusement. The class soon turned into a massive dance session with all the children, who energetically taught us a few traditional and Bollywood-style dance moves – skills that we could never pull off with quite so much style!

Over the next few days, between more dance classes and being fed absolutely delicious South Indian food, Gabbi and I also managed to spend time singing and playing with the children, visiting the local town and going on a tour of some beautiful Hindu and Buddhist temples and shrines in the region. We were delighted to meet so many members of the HEAL team during our stay, including CEO Mrs Laxmi Tatineni, HEAL India Sponsorship Secretary Mrs O Vijayalaxmi, Mr Dhana Prakash, Managing Director of Model Dairy and major benefactor of the new Paradise Village, and Varma, on-site HEAL coordinator. Everyone was endlessly generous and hospitable – we ran out of ways to say thank you.

One memory that will always stay with us was the experience of watching Dr N Manga Devi, General Secretary and HEAL visionary, reading a bedtime story one evening to 15 absolutely captivated children. Her compassionate approach was deeply inspiring and a wider reflection of the loving environment that the HEAL children are surrounded by every day, and which they clearly absorb. Never was this more apparent than at the moment of our leaving, when many of the young girls tried to give us the little jewellery they owned. We were so moved by their generosity and made to feel very hopeful for their futures, which, through the atmosphere HEAL has created, will certainly be bright.

Gabbi and I are excited about jointly sponsoring a ‘Poverty Trap’ child through their education over the coming months and years.

February 2011
Rebecca Newsom
Account Executive, PLMR

In this newsletter:
• Paradise Children’s Village, Ganavaram
• Bhadrachalam
• Kanuru School, Vijayawada
• HEAL Children’s Village, Guntur
• Cycle India 2012

To view the Heal newsletter click on the Heal newsletter pdf.

Thank you.

I was very excited to come to Guntur, as I study Carnatic music and my guru is from Vijayawada, and grew up in and around Guntur.  In this regard it was exciting for me to experience where he came from in a more tangible way, but it became even more exciting upon our arrival at Chetana.  Before coming to India, we are under the impression that all of the HEAL projects were in separate areas of Guntur, so one can imagine our surprise when we awoke to 500+ children at our door step!  It was so incredible to be able to work with so many kids, and to see how perfect everything and everyone works together to make the Chetana community flourish.  

Before arriving, we had hashed out several ideas of possible methods of teaching music to the children, and ultimately decided that the best approach would be to simply spend time with the children and see what happens.  At first this was a bit chaotic, as the kids were just getting used to us, and were really just interested in having fun and making noise, but over the course of the week, many of the children became more and more interested in learning music, and began coming to us demanding practice at all hours of the day.  This was perfect, as it was exactly what I had hoped to instill in the children; a curiousity and interest for music, and furthermore, a desire for personal expression. 

I find that this desire not only leads to artistic creativity, but greater sense of personal creativity in all aspects of life.  This is especially evident in the improvised ensemble situation which we created with a small group of the HEAL kids.  Even though many of them have never had any form of music training, they realized that if they worked together with what they had (in this case drums and percussion), they could create music that worked together rhythmically and melodically, and ultimately create coherent music.  I feel like this extends beyond music though, as this seems to be the way that the children approach all situations in life at Chetana, and I feel that music and arts training can only make this better than it already is.

Writing this right now is already getting me excited about coming back, and generating so many new ideas.  I am hoping to come back very soon, and already spreading the word as much as possible here in the States, so that more Americans have they chance to experience such an amazing community, and an even more amazing group of kids!  Next time I promise I will stay longer!

Taylor Burton