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2011
DECEMBER
Christmas celebrations at Karun
Waddesden School Fund Raising
Many thanks to the pupils who have raised £536. Here Ella Woodcock and Izzy Dyckoff present the cheque.
New Classroom & Girls Dormitory
Several deigns have already been considered and costed for a new classroom block and girls dormitory extension - the Trustees hope that work will start early in the New Year.
Karun Visit October 2011 - Lots happening
Janet and Leslie Stephen visited Karun for a week in October. They were accompanied by Marie-Line Pesquidoux a corporate lawyer from Paris. As ever the staff and children were very pleased to see visitors.
Much has happened since the last visit. The old girls’ dormitory and attached classroom have been demolished and the ground levelled ready for new buildings. It was very exciting to see how well the children are using the IT facilities to support their learning. Teachers very much appreciated the work done by Vanessa and Phil Hughes when they visited Karun in July including adding two additional computers .
A big concern for the trustees has been the state of the classrooms and the girls’ dormitory. The trust has been very fortunate to receive a large donation for school buildings. During the visit Leslie was able to meet the architect and the builder to get plans underway for the new school.
Moses Xavier and his wife who have been looking after Karun for more than 30 years felt that the time had come to retire. We are very fortunate that Dharmu who was a HR manager for a large private hospital and who knows Karun well has agreed to take on the overall management of Karun. The trustees are sure that under his leadership Karun will continue to grow from strength to strength.
The two girls Lata and Kannaga who are supported by the trust in continuing their studies are doing well. Lata, in her second year of nursing training, is enjoying the course. She was very proud that she was chosen by the tutor to produce a case study of a patient to present to her class. Kannaga is doing well in her degree course at Bishop Heber University. She has made good friends and has joined an environmental club that she enjoys. Annakamu visits the girls every month.
The trustees would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who continues to support Karun to improve the life chances of needy young people. Your support has helped Karun come a long way in the last 5 years.
JUNE 2011
For a variety of reasons we have not been too good at updating our site and our apologies to the many supporters of the Orphanage.
So what’s been happening? Last October a group from Reading Maiden Erlegh Rotary Club and Loddon Vale Rotary Club – key supporting organisations – spent some time in Trichy and at the school. There are lots of photos in the gallery which show some of the many activities. These included the formal opening of the I T ROOM and computer Centre funded by Loddon Vale. The staff and children made everyone very welcome. Claire Christie accompanied the group and stayed on. her Report follows.
We have had some problems with buildings and some had become so unsafe that they had to be demolished. We are now looking at replacements and investigating the Grants which may be available - under some conditions - to replace the main school block.
Moses Xavier is also looking to retire after many years managing the School on a day to day basis and the search is on for somone to fill his shoes - by no means an easy task.
Visit by Lesley and Steve Turville to Karun, November 2010.
It had been over 2 years since our last visit to Karun, so we were very excited about the prospect of seeing not only how the place had changed, but how much the children had grown.
There have been a lot of changes to the site since our last visit. The kitchen has been completely rebuilt and enlarged. It was quite incredible to see the children working in English on computers in the shiny new IT suite. The garden outside the shower block is now lush and green. One of the older main buildings has been declared unsafe by Government inspectors, so that was in the process of being demolished and needs to be replaced. The work goes on.
On our first visit we hadn’t stayed at Karun because the guest accommodation was still being finished so this time we were privileged to be able to live on site for a week, joining the day to day life of the school and home.
We walked with the older children the half mile to the secondary school each morning; we sat in on lessons at the primary school, including English and IT; we played games with the children after school and at the weekends, (Leslie joined in with the girls, who loved skipping and hopscotch, and I joined the boys for volleyball or football); and we visited the 2 young ladies who have gone on to nursing college and university in Trichy, who are supported by the Trust. We hope that they are the first of many.
We left, once more impressed by the warmth and family atmosphere of Karun.
Creating a library - Claire Christie
In late October 2010, I travelled out to the Karun Orphanage with a group of Rotarians and Leslie and Janet Stephens. After a few days, the Rotarians left and I was left to begin my work with the children. My target was to create a library for the children at the orphanage. As well as clothing etc, we brought books donated by children from Oxford High School and plentiful art supplies. With funds raised from a concert in Oxford, two lock up library cupboards were purchased.
At the orphanage I ran daily art workshops for small groups of the children at the on-site school in which they made work which was later assembled to form a big jungle collage in a corner of their big hall. They made decorated cut out elephants for a frieze; a papier mache baby elephant on a small section of which each child painted a decoration; birds, dragon flies, lotus flowers, grasses, leaves, oranges and bananas which went into the collage; and colourful butterflies which were hung on wires across the corner where the library was made.
The children, many of whom had no experience of working with scissors, paint, and collage, responded wonderfully and also at the end of each session, thoroughly enjoyed either a story or a song accompanied by very basic home made percussion instruments. They produced a striking and colourful collage, a happy elephant which stands on top of a library cupboard, and 2 friezes around the hall.
We bought mats for the floor and my last sight of the children was of a group of children with Peter their teacher, sitting in their new library thoroughly engrossed in books. They have a library and I had the experience of a lifetime
JULY NEWS
A Boost to our Funds!
This summer friends of Karun have stage three great fund raising events.
Vanessa and Phil Hughes, who both spent one month at Karun last September, held a quiz night. The evening was a great success and since Phil and Vanessa were the ones who introduced the children at the orphanage to IT, the money raised will go towards computer hardware in the new IT Suite.
Barbara McGregor took advantage of the lovely summer weather and held a Garden Party at her home in Wokingham. Her friends enjoyed glasses of Pimms and tea and cakes. Barbara first heard about the orphanage at St Andrew’s Church Sonning, where she is a member of the congregation.
The third event was ‘A Summer Serenade’ at the Church of St Michael and all Angels, Oxford. Claire and Malcolm Sadler and Louise Taylor played some wonderful trios by Beethoven and Brahms and Louise accompanied Carol Goodall singing from ‘Seven Shakespeare Songs’ by Madeleine Dring. The audience thoroughly enjoyed this first class performance. Claire and Malcolm will be visiting Karun in the autumn. Claire will be spending three weeks there and is planning work on an art project with the children.
Thank you very much Phil and Vanessa, Barbara and Claire and Malcolm for your fantastic support. We really appreciate your generosity.
New Dormitory for the Girls at Karun.
As you will know all our Trust funds come from donations and so we are very happy to announce that we are now in a position to make a commitment to begin work on new accommodation for the girls at the orphanage. This is a big project for us and so the builder has agreed work to carry out the work in stages as money becomes available. Thank you to everyone for your continued support. Without your help we would not be able to run and improve the orphanage.
I.T. ROOM IN USE - too busy concentrating to wave!
JUNE 2010 - ACCEDEMIC SUCCESS!
You may remember that our sixth form girls were sitting their final exams in March. In May we were delighted to hear that Lata and Kannaga had done really well and secured the places they wanted to continue their education. This is an important milestone in the life of the orphanage as it is the first time that girls have reached this level. Continuing their studies is a tremendous opportunity for them but we should not fail to recognise the cultural barriers they have had to overcome as girls are from a very traditional village background
Kannaga has joined Bishop Heber University, Trichy to study BA History. Bishop Heber is a well established successful university linked to Liverpool Hope University and Wolverhampton University. We are fortunate to have secured a grant to cover all Kannaga’s tution fees and we hope to get a grant to cover her hostel fees. This is achievable because the government has a programme of positive discrimination to help those form very poor backgrounds and underprivileged castes. Kannaga started her studies this week and we hope to hear from her soon. Annakamu reported that she was really excited! The University has very good IT facilities and we look forward to emails from her. We will need to find about £300 a year to cover her books and personal expenses.
Lata will be joining a 3 ½ years Diploma in General Nursing & Midwifery course at the Kavery Medical Centre & Hospital popularly known as KMC. It is a 400 bed multispeciality hospital, located at the heart of Trichy. The hospital is known for its high quality care with the state of the art technology. Lata has already visited the hospital and she will be staying in a nurses hostel in Trichy. She is delighted to be embarking on this first step in her chosen career. On completion of the Diploma, Lata will be automatically offered a job at the hospital to complete her 2 year compulsory training. There are no grants available for nursing. The current cost per year will be £1000. This will cover all tuition and hostel fees, uniforms, hostel to hospital transport and personal expenses.
We are very grateful to Annakamu the warden’s wife who has played a key role in helping both girls prepare for their move into higher education. Annakamu helped them complete their enrolment as well as take them for visits and interviews. She liaised with their families to help them understand the importance of the girls continuing their education as well as giving them reassurances about life in a city. Annakamu also took the girls shopping to buy all their clothes and personal items (the trust has funded this). Annakamu will act as guardians for Kannaga and Lata. She will be visiting the girls monthly and they will spend their free weekends at the orphanage.
As a Trust we are committed to supporting the girls through their higher education as for them this is the way to “break the cycle of poverty” and we do hope that we will be able to find sponsors to help us. The costs are significant to us but we feel well worthwhile. We are looking for sponsors for both girls and this doesn’t have to be for all their expenses.
