Spring News

Thursday, 29th of April 2010

In our last newsletter we had to write that Rohit left Ganga Valley Homestay to work with his brother in the teastall. We are very happy that now we can write that Rohit is with us again since February 2010. After a few visits from Rachel and Kees, Rohit’s brother agreed to send him back to us.

Rahul (12 years old) has also come to stay with us. Rahul was working in one of the hotels in the neighbourhood and stayed with his brother. He was very eager to go to school and left his job. He has worked hard and now he can read and write in both English and Hindi. At the moment he is in third grade.

Jitender, who is 8 years old, is another boy who has come to stay. He is very shy; fortunately he has the company of his elder brother Sahil, who is with us since several years now. Jitender is studying very hard in first grade and likes drawing.

About our visitors and volunteers

Swami Ramanand has visited the school and the homestay and with his donation we could buy a laser printer with a scanner. We have already made a lot of worksheets. It is very convenient that we don’t have to go out anymore to do the printing work, it saves us so much time! Every time we make a print out we think of you, Swami Ramanand!

Inge has given Claude (from France) a Devanagiri course. For these lessons Claude made a donation to the school, for which we could buy many educational DVD’s and puzzles for the children. Claude has also been helping Manish with Hindi & English on a daily basis. Being able to read and write Hindi herself, Claude could even give him dictation in Hindi. Manish has worked hard, doing more homework than Claude gave him. We have seen he has gained a lot of self confidence from these extra lessons. Both Manish and Claude were very sad when she had to leave, but fortunately Claude will try to come back still this year. We are all looking forward to seeing you again, Claude!

Griet (our volunteer from Belgium) had a visit from her father. He also came to see us and brought stickers and delicious Belgium chocolates for the children. He also gave a donation and therefore we could apply for internet, which has proven to be very useful in our classes. Many thanks for the possibility to make the lessons of our students so much more interesting!

Talassi has come in March to visit us again. She brought many sweets for the children and donations from Antje Sievert, Nicole, Andreas Reiss, . We bought course books for class 5 (6 students) and class 4 (6 students) from anjea donation. Nicole, Andreas Reiss and Talassi donated funds in specific children’s behalf and as is our policy those funds will be utilized for all of our children as required. We want to thank Talassi warmheartedly for all her work in supporting us.

Through Ashley a group of 4 American people has visited us. They stayed for tea and danced with the children. We enjoyed their visit very much, it was great fun! They made a donation for school, for which we could buy school books for class ( five students).

In March Kees and Inge went home again to The Netherlands. But first Sahil, Deepesh and Vipasana did their final typing tests. They have obtained their certificate for blind typing, all three with more than 100 beats a minute and only around 1% of mistakes! The other group of students (Vandana, Anjali, Laxmi and Ashish) has also worked very hard and will probably do their typing test later this year, when Kees and Inge are coming back. Rachel and Raj managed to obtain internet for the classes and therefore it was decided to postpone the classes for Word and Exel until next time. Instead, the children had the opportunity to practice their English in different ways. The internet offers many possibilities to learn English in a practical way, like listening exercises with comprehension, ESL quizzes and so on. Even for the youngest students (who already master some English vocabulary) there are quizzes with images. Internet in the classroom is a big hit, the children are now much more motivated to learn and use English.

Events

The children have not only worked hard in school, they have also performed in several dance contests. For their performance in “Rishikesh Idols”, Deepesh, Vipasana, Vandana and Renu won the second prize with their hoop dance. We are so proud to have the medals and the cup in our TV-room! On Independence Day the children also performed several dances in a community function and again they went home with a few prizes.

This year our annual function was celebrated on International Women’s Day. We combined the performances of the children with games on stage for the mothers of our students. The presentation this year was very professionally and enthusiastically done by Nidhi, our head teacher. Within the framework of International Women’s Day, we honored several women from the society, our volunteer Inge, who is very committed and Talassi, who is supporting us continuously.