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India Trip
St Margaret's trek through the hills of India and visit Goodwill Village to present a cheque for £11,269.09 from their fundraising efforts. The Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards are a major part of life at St Margaret’s School. Significant numbers of girls achieve the Gold Award each year and the most recent group of Gold Award girls have just returned from India. They took part in a training walk stretching across 2 nights and 3 days within mountains at 8,000 ft above sea level. Over the 3 days we covered over 30 miles walking across a diverse assortment of terrain including banana plantations and between eucalyptus trees. Although at times it was physically challenging walking in temperatures up to 40ºC there was a great sense of achievement felt by everyone. St Margaret’s have supported the Goodwill charity for over 20 years, it is a British based charity devoted to helping destitute children in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. They provide education from 5 – 16 years and trade training such as tailoring, mechanics and electricians for students. Medical care and a family environment allows these young children to thrive in a safe environment. In the past 5 years, they have started a Tribal Outreach Project which supports 22 remote villages, providing clean water, health care and education for the whole community. The D of E Gold Award students from St Margaret’s have raised nearly £50,000 over the past 8 years which has built a classroom, provided water pumps and we are currently purchasing land for the TORP. They have recently started a kindergarten so the village elders will allow the older children who normally look after their younger siblings, an opportunity to go to school themselves. Hopefully all the monies raised will have a lasting impact on the future of hundreds of children in the area as the key to climbing out of the poverty trap, is education. |
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