The summer was very severe with the temperatures rising to almost 45 Celsius and when the rains came in the last week of June we heaved a sigh of relief!

In India the rains are special. They come after scorching heat and bring cool showers. We love to run out to play in the rain and get thoroughly wet!

But first of all the news about the tenth class students who passed High school in first class! Fourteen of them joined Junior College. So this year there are 35 Heal Children who are studying different courses in the local colleges.

We had a lovely surprise when Dr. Sathya Prasad the founder of Heal UK, Carl Brodie, the chairman and Matthew, one of the Directors visited us in June. We spent two delightful days with them.

They are organizing a tour Cycle India which is a unique opportunity to cycle 220 miles from Hyderabad to Guntur to raise funds to build schools for poor children, from 2nd January to 11 January

We are eagerly waiting to receive 25 of these brave cyclists from UK who promised to spend at least three days with us!

We are sending you some of the news clips covering their visit

An Old Age Home was built by Dr. Manga Devi, Secretary to Heal India with the concept that the young and the old living together find solace in each other’s company.

Dr. Sathya Prasad, Carl Brodie and Mathew inaugurated the Old Age Home.

A medical camp was conducted when Heal UK Directors were visiting Heal village.

We are signing off for the present.

We will have even more exciting things to talk about in the next news letter since a number of volunteers from UK are visiting us at various times the next six months!

Bye!

Children from Heal Village

The Boys Hostel, our latest project was completed in December 2005.

Opening Ceremony Saturday 3rd December 2005

This was a great opportunity for me to visit the Village, a dream that I had held for many years.

Together with Dr Prasad and two more Directors of HEAL UK we flew out from Heathrow Airport on the 1st December 2005, eventually arriving in Guntur on Saturday the 3rd December early in the morning following an extremely long train journey from Bangalore to Guntur.

Waiting to greet us on the platform in Guntur were Dr Manga Devi HEAL India Secretary, Vijayalakshmi Sponsor Secretary, Marudhwathi, Co-ordinating Officer and a few of the young girls from the village, looking beautiful in their colourful saris. It was a wonderful welcome and soon we were on our way to the Village.

Having never been to India before it was an amazing experience for me, heat and dust everywhere, I found the traffic quite frightening but had every confidence in our driver on the 15 kilms. drive to the village.

Andhra Pradesh is a vast State, tucked away in 3 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens, with magnificent trees and an abundance of flowers, is The Children’s Village. I can only describe as “a little bit of heaven.”

Making a tour of the grounds and the cottages, meeting all the children, housemothers, teachers, and staff took up quite some time. I was overwhelmed with the kindness of everyone; eventually making our way to the newly built Boy’s Hostel which will house at least 50 boys.

A team of drummers and a brass band, young Army Cadets (made up from the children from the School) lined the route for this special occasion, giving it a carnival atmosphere; nothing had been spared to make this a memorable day…

The official Opening of the Boy’s Hostel took place, Dr Manga Devi gave a warm welcome to the Directors of HEAL UK and invited Dr K S Prasad, Matthew Glover and myself to unveil the Plaque.

The Hostel which was quite impressive, two rooms on the first floor complete with beds, lockers etc. ready to receive the new visitors.

After a short respite for a welcome fresh fruit drink we progressed to the arena and stage for the official welcome to us by Manga Devi and her team of Directors. The children then entertained us with dancing, a Karate demonstrations, singing and readings.

It truly was a delightful day, very moving to actually be with these children who all looked so well and happy and certainly very well cared for. One just had to look at the faces of the children – it said it all.

I felt as though I had come full circle…

Twenty five years ago I met Dr Prasad when he first came to Practice in Peterborough, England, where he used to tell me about this “dream” he had of building a village somewhere in India to make a home for destitute children. As a founder member of HEAL, I feel very privileged to be part of this dream, which is now a blue print for perhaps more villages to be built in the future

This is a credit to Dr Prasad, Manga Devi and all who look after their welfare and all the supporters and sponsors everywhere, without whom, these children would have no future.

Kathleen Bardell Director/Secretary HEAL UK

HEAL UK – 12th Anniversary celebrations. 
 
The Garden Party on Sunday 11th July 2004 was a huge success, despite the inclement weather (we had to take over the village hall at the last moment) despite this; we had a good turn out, raising almost £1,900.

Markets do not affect HEAL
 
The Trustees are aware of the recent press articles regarding the adverse effect that the fall in share prices over the last three years has had on the reserves of many Charities in the country.

We would like to take the opportunity to state that HEAL has absolutely no exposure of any kind to the equity markets and is not affected in any way by their performance.

We’ve got a more modern looking website now, and crucially we have the use of the CMS (content management system) which allows us to keep the website more up to date than we’ve been able to in the past.  There’s also a blog (which is what you are reading now) which allows us to create interesting new stories and share them with the rest of the world far quicker and easier.

There’s also going to be an easier way for people to sign up for our exciting charity bike ride – Cycle India – by using our Sign Up Now form.

We hope you enjoy our new website and please get in touch if you have any suggestions or comments.