Previously: Friends of the Poor in South India
Training and Education Centre
Our magnificent Training & Education Centre is a new community asset, custom built to provide a safe and comfortable environment for our adult training programmes in the day time, and after-school evening tuition for children at night.
The New Computer Room
To ensure all-round development, the children also undertake monthly computer classes. Many of these Dalit children do not have access to any digital education. Through these classes, they learned how to use basic computer tools, which not only enhanced their knowledge but also bridged the digital divide they often face in school settings. During these monthly sessions, counselling and emotional wellness sessions are organised.
These moments of care and conversation help students relieve study stress, build emotional strength, and find peace of mind. Their daily life can be quite harsh but this helps them become more open, relaxed, and motivated to learn new things beyond their schoolbooks.The computer suit is of course open regularly to local women for our well-tutored computer training classes.
The ‘Centre for Hope’ our Co-op.
It was within the Training Centre that the team started its first tailoring Co-operative unit a milestone that laid the foundation for skill-based self-reliance. What makes this initiative so very special is the training provided by professional Japanese volunteers who have been visiting the centre.
They generously shared their unique techniques and stitching patterns with our team who learned these intricate methods but also carefully documented the lessons, enabling them to pass on this knowledge with clarity and precision to the trainees. Inspired by the success of our co-op, our ISARD team is planning to establish a second tailoring co-op in Kariyapatti, a very poor community at present reliant on dangerous charcoal-making employment.
Physical and Mental Health
The harsh circumstances in which our villagers live can cause trauma and mental ill-health. Therefore in addition to the physical health checks provided by our resident doctor, considerable care is taken to train both staff and beneficiaries in India in matters of personal safety, human rights in the face of abuse, sexual health and such like.
Most of the work of our Indian team is in groups and this provides opportunity for the bonding of mutually caring groups. Many of the team are women who are able to get alongside the beneficiaries and win their trust so that important concerns are at last voiced by women who are normally too scared to share these matters. The women have fun, undertake keep-fit and craft sessions, eat together, play together and share ideas and concerns. We see our participants go from strength to strength.
Deaths and Water
One of the many household chores undertaken by the children is the fetching of water to the home. Not only is it extremely heavy but rarely as pure as western people have come to expect. On one occasion, two of our younger children, Siva and Monica, on going to the local disused quarry to fetch water slipped and drowned. This prompted us to raise money for a huge water purifier which delights the children as well as the local families who have never tasted such clean and safe water.
