Helping Elsewhere

We have been very lucky this week as some of you have already risen to the challenge of sponsoring our teacher’s salary. So we can announce that we now have enough money for the first year’s salary! The post has been advertised and they have had a couple of applications for the position already… so we will keep you all updated. Thank you especially to our great friends John and Jean in Essex, our relations Tom and Joan in Somerset, and our vet Katy and her husband James in London for their generous support, plus many others whose contributions, large and small, are all adding up.

We now have made supporting us even easier as we now have a dedicated PayPal link. You can use either your own PayPal account or your normal credit card by clicking on the button below…

Full details are on our How you can help page.

On Friday of last week we had an email from Gina following the latest meeting at the school. It would appear that they’ve lost a part time computer teacher. This threw our plans into disarray – if we were going to get two or more computers, then the school would need a proper, full time, IT teacher… for which the school just did not have the funds. The salary is roughly Rs. 2000 per month for a commitment of two years – only after that time would we hopefully be able to get government support. So the question was asked, “Do you think part of the money raised can go towards the salary of one teacher?”. If we could give Father an assurance quickly then he would go ahead and employ someone from June. I could see the deeper point in this, because instead of just juggling teachers around, as usually happens in these little schools, they would have a full time teacher, properly trained and who would only concentrate on the teaching of computers we are raising the money for. We didn’t need to think about this for too long… and we have already given the go ahead to find and employ someone. So not only does it mean that this is now a long term project but we have achieved part of our goal already to change lives! So our next task is to find someone who would be happy to take on the sponsorship of this 2000 rupees a month (sounds a lot… in fact it is about £25). So do you want to change someone’s life? If so let me know!

For all you on-line shoppers out there, you can help us raise funds by clicking on this link: http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/helpingelsewhere

You then register and set the organisation you support to ‘Helping Elsewhere’ – every time you shop online you can then use this portal to choose from over 500 of the best known retailers including Next, Amazon and even Ebay. Use the links on this site and up to 15% from every purchase you make is donated to our cause. It doesn’t cost a penny extra to shop and raise funds for our cause by using this site – you can even save money as they sometimes give extra on line discounts!

As I am sure many of you know the monsoon comes to Goa about this time every year. In Goa they hold a festival to welcome the arrival of the rains – this year it will take place on the 21st June – and here are some pictures that show Mandrem and the festival from previous years. These pictures have been taken by our friend and host Denzil Sequeira who has helped us with this project in Goa, and I think will end up driving backwards and forwards to the UPS depot to collect the spoils for the school as it can be a little difficult to find.

The festival is in honour of San Joao (St John the Baptist) and is celebrated in Goa with typical enthusiasm. This is a festival that men take part in – they plunge into their neighbourhood wells, rivers and lakes with the loud chanting of “Sao Joao, Sao Joao, Viva Sao Joao”. The pictures show the wearing of the traditional leaf and flower crowns called ‘kopels’.

Today was the first day of Royal Ascot and, despite not being regular race goers, we decided to have a flutter on the horses. We also thought that any profit from this adventure could go into the school fund. Maybe it was the ‘lucky’ flower we purchased from the gipsy that greeted us in the car park or crossing her palm with paper (not silver any more – that is inflation for you!), but we had two winners out of the four races we bet on. So another £35 has been added to the fund…