Helping Elsewhere

Apologies to all – events have conspired to stop any updates on the blog for many a month. Loads of things have been happening in our lives but primarily not only have we moved house in the UK, but we’ve been searching for a more permanent base in Goa and finally we’ve found it.

That’s not to say that in the meantime we’ve not been fund-raising (thank you to everybody that has been contributing to and buying from our jewellery parties!) and helping out our favourite Goan projects! Over the next few days we’ll be updating you in detail on what’s been happening in that time and letting you know how everybody here in Goa is carrying things forward.

But as an extremely quick précis…

Mandrem school has achieved so much that it has been putting its first scholars through the 10th Standard exams – that all-important benchmark that opens up so many doors for the kids. Helping Elsewhere contributed by helping to provide revision classes and more scholarships. And now we’re raising funds for a photocopier so the school running costs can be reduced and efficiency increased.

The ‘Lighting Up The Village’ scheme has also been forging ahead. We brought over some friends from the UK last October (to help us celebrate ‘significant’ birthdays!) who helped us to light up another 14 houses in the third of Father George’s four villages. We made a memorable trip up into the Ghats to see progress

Meanwhile Bookworm has been consolidating its position as one of the leading literary NGOs in Goa (and India) – it’s getting noticed officially now. And some of its past ‘graduates’ have now returned to extend Bookworm’s work by starting to run outreach schemes into local villages and slums – Helping Elsewhere made a substantial contribution to start-up costs and I went out with them to see their progress.

Each of these projects will get its own blog post in due course. Keep an eye out!